Solar Tower TechnologyNishar Akhter

Electrical EngineeringJaipur National University

Jagatpura , Jaipurnishar.wish@gmail.com

Abstract The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thos eof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Introduction

Solar energy has experienced an impressive technological shift. While early solar technologies consisted of small scale photovoltaic

(PV) cells, recent technologies are represented by solar concentrated power (CSP) and also by large-scale PV systems that feed into electricity grids. The costs of solar energy technologies have dropped substantially over the last 30 years. For example, thecost of high power band solar modules has decreased from about $27,000/kW in 1982 to about $4,000/kW in 2006; theinstalled cost of a PV system declined from $16,000/kW in 1992 to around $6,000/kW in 2008(IEA-PVPS, 2007; Solarbuzz, 2006, Lazard 2009). The rapid expansion of the solarenergy market can be attributed to a number of supportive policy instrument sthe increased volatility off ossil fuel prices and the environmental externalities of fossil fuelsparticularly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions Theoretically, solar energy has resource potential that far exceeds the entire global energy demand (Kurokawa et al. 2007; EPIA, 2007). Despite this technical potential and the recent growth of the market, the contribution of solar energy to the global energy supply mix is still negligible(IEA, 2009)This study attempts to address why the role ofsolar energy in meeting the global energy supply mix continues to be so a small. What are the key barriers that prevented largescale deployment of solar energy in the national energy systems? What types of policy instruments have been introduced to boost the solar energy markets? Have these policies produced desired results? If not, what type of new

policy instruments would be needed? A number of studies, including Arvizuet al(2011), have addressed various issues related to solar energy. This studypresents a synthesis review of existing literature as well as presents economic analysis to examine competitiveness solar energy with fossil energy counterparts. Our study shows that despite a large drop in capital costs and an increase in fossil fuel prices, solar energy technologies are not yetcompetitive with conventional technologies for electricityproduction The economic competitiveness of these technologies does not improve much even when the environmental externalities of fossil fuel sare taken into consideration. Besides the economic disadvantage, solar energy technologies face a number of technological, financial and institutional barriers that further constrain their large scale deployment. Policy instruments introduced to address these barriers include feed in tariffs(FIT) tax credits, capital subsidies and grants, renewable energy portfolio standards (RPS) with specified standards for solar energy, public investments and other financial incentives. While FIT played an instrumental role in 3 Germany and Spain, a mix of policy portfolios that includes federal tax credits, subsidies and rebates, RPS, net metering and renewable energy certificates (REC) facilitated solar energy market growth in the United States. Although the clean development mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol has helped the implementation of some solar energy projects, its role in promoting solar energy is very small as compared to that for other renewable energy technologies because of cost competitiveness. Existing studies we reviewed indicate that the share of solar energy in global energy supply mix could exceed 10% by 2050.This would still be a small share of total energy supply and a small share of renewable supply if the carbon intensity of the global energy system were reduced by something on the order of 75%, as many have argued is necessary to stem the threat of global warming.The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the current status of solar energytechnologies, resource potential and market development This is followed by economic analysis of solar energy technologies including sensitivities on capital cost reductions and environmental benefits in Section 3.

Section 4 identifies the technical, economic, and institutional barriers to the development and utilization of solarenergy technologies followed by a review of existing fiscal and regulatory policy approaches to increase solar energy development in Sections5 and 6, including potential impacts of greenhouse gas mitigation policies on the deployment of solar energy technologies. Finally, key conclusions are drawn in Section .

.

WORKING- The solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plants or 'heliostat' power plants or power towers, is a type of solar furnace us-ing a tower to receive the focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's rays upon a collector tower (the target). Concentrated solar thermal is seen as one vi-able solution for renewable, pollution free energy. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies use mirrors to concentrate (focus) the sun's light energy and convert it into heat to create steam to drive a turbine that generates electrical power. CSP tech-nology utilizes focused sunlight. CSP plants gener-ate electric power by using mirrors to concentrate (focus) the sun's energy and convert it into high-temperature heat. That heat is then channeled through a conventional generator. The plants consist of two parts: one that collects solar energy and con-verts it to heat, and another that converts the heat energy to electricity. A brief video showing how concentrating solar power works (using a parabolic trough system as an example) is available from the Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Web site.

Within the United States, CSP plants have been op-erating reliably for more than 15 years. All CSP technological approaches require large areas for so-lar radiation collection when used to produce elec-tricity at commercial scale. CSP technology utilizes

three alternative technological approaches: trough systems, power tower systems, and dish/engine sys-tems. Early designs used these focused rays to heat water, and used the resulting steam to power a tur-bine. Newer designs using liquid sodium have been demonstrated, and systems using molten salts (40% potassium nitrate, 60% sodium nitrate) as the work-ing fluids are now in operation. These working flu-ids have high heat capacity, which can be used to store the energy before using it to boil water to drive turbines. These designs also allow power to be gen-erated when the sun is not shining. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has esti-mated that by 2020 electricity could be produced from power towers for 5.47 cents per kWh. Compa-nies such as E Solar are continuing development of cheap, low maintenance, mass producible heliostat components that will reduce costs in the near future. E Solar's design uses large numbers of small mirrors which reduce costs for installing mounting systems such as

concrete, steel, drilling & cranes. Improvements in working fluid systems, such as moving from current two tank (hot/cold) designs to single tank thermo-cline systems with quartzite thermal fillers and oxy-gen blankets will improve material efficiency and reduce costs further.

Applications- Recently, there has been a renewed interest in solar tower power technology, as is evi-dent from the fact that there are several companies involved in planning, designing and building utility size power plants. This is an important step towards the ultimate goal of developing commercially viable plants. There are numerous example of case studies of applying innovative solution to solar power.

Novel applications

Pit Power Tower concept in Bingham Canyon mine

The Pit Power Tower combines a Solar Power Tower and an Aero-electric Power Tower in a de-commissioned open pit mine. Traditional Solar Power Towers are constrained in size by the height of the tower and closer heliostats blocking the line of sight of outer heliostats to the receiver. The use of the pit mine's "stadium seating" helps overcome the blocking constraint.As Solar Power Towers commonly use steam to drive the turbines, and wa-ter tends to be scarce in regions with high solar en-ergy, another advantage of open pits is that they tend to collect water, having been dug below the water table. The Pit Power Tower uses low heat steam to drive the Pneumatic Tubes in a co-genera-tion system. A third benefit of re-purposing a pit mine for this kind of project is the possibility of reusing mine infrastructure such as roads, buildings and electricity.Impacts No hazardous gaseous or liquid emissions are released during operation of the solar power tower plant. If a salt spill occurs, the salt will freeze before significant contamination of the soil occurs. Salt is picked up with a shovel and can be recycled if necessary. If the power tower is hybridized with a conventional fossil plant, emissions will be released from the non-solar portion of the plant.

Assuming success at Solar Two, power tower technology will be on the verge of technology readiness for commercial applications. However, progress related to scale-up and R&D for specific subsystems is still needed to reduce costs and to increase reliability to the point where the technology becomes an attractive financial investment. Promising work is ongoing in the following areas:

Ideally, to be economically competitive with conventional fossil technology, a power tower should be at least 10 times larger than Solar Two [4]. It may be possible to construct this plant directly following Solar Two, but the risk perceived by the technical and financial communities may require that a plant of intermediate size (30-50 MW) be constructed first. The World Bank will consider requests for funding power tower projects following a successful two-year operation of Solar Two. However, countries interested in the technology have indicated they may need to see a utility- scale plant operating in the U.S. before they will include power towers in their energy portfolio. Since the electricity cost of a stand-alone 30 MW solar-only plant will be significantly higher than the fossil competition, innovative

All annual energy estimates presented in Table 3 are based on simulations with the SOLERGY computer code [1]. The inputs to the SOLERGY computer code (mirror reflectance, receiver efficiency, startup times, parasitic power, plant availability, etc.) are based on measured data taken from the 10 MWe Solar One and the small (~1 MWe) molten-salt receiver system test conducted in the late 1980’s [15,16]. The SOLERGY code itself has been validated with a full year of operation at Solar One [17]. However, no overall annual energy data is available from an operating molten-salt power tower. Collection of this data is one of the main goals of the Solar Two demonstration project.

The costs presented in Table 3 for Solar Two are the actuals incurred for the project as reported by Southern California Edison. Capital and operation and maintenance (O&M) cost estimates for 2000 and beyond are consistent with estimates contained in the U.S. Utility Study [14] and the International Energy Agency studies [16]. These studies have been used as a basis to estimate costs for hybrid options and plants with different capacity factors [4]. In addition, O&M costs for power-tower plants with sizes < 100 MWe

have been compared with actuals incurred at the operating10 to 80 MWe solar-trough plants in California with similar sizes to insure consistency. Because of the manysimilarities between trough and tower technology, a first-order assumption that O&M costs at trough and tower plants

.Concentrated solar power (also called concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal, and CSP) systems use mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a small area. Electrical power is produced when the concentrated light is converted to heat, which drives a heat engine (usually a steam turbine) connected to an electrical power generator.CSP is being widely commercialized and the CSP market has seen about 740 MW of generating ca-pacity added between 2007 and the end of 2010. More than half of this (about 478 MW) was in-stalled during 2010, bringing the global total to 1095 MW. Spain added 400 MW in 2010, taking the global lead with a total of 632 MW, while the US ended the year with 509 MW after adding 78 MW, including two fossil–CSP hybrid plants.[1]

CSP growth is expected to continue at a fast pace. As of April 2011, another 946 MW of capacity was under construction in Spain with total new capacity of 1,789 MW expected to be in operation by the end of 2013. A further 1.5 GW of parabolic-trough and

power-tower plants were under construction in the US, and contracts signed for at least another 6.2 GW. Interest is also notable in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as India and China. The global market has been dominated by parabolic-trough plants, which account for 90 percent of CSP plants.

CSP is not to be confused with concentrated photo-voltaics (CPV). In CSP, the concentrated sunlight is converted to heat, and then the heat is converted to electricity. In CPV, the concentrated sunlight is con-verted directly to electricity via the photovoltaic ef-fect. CSP is used to produce electricity (sometimes called solar thermoelectricity, usually generated through steam). Concentrated-solar technology sys-tems use mirrors or lenses with tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight onto a small area. The concentrated light is then used as heat or as a heat source for a conventional power plant (solar ther-moelectricity). The solar concentrators used in CSP systems can often also be used to provide industrial process heating or cooling, such as in solar air-con-ditioning.

Concentrating technologies exist in four common forms, namely parabolic trough, dish Stirlings, con-centrating linear Fresnel reflector, and solar power tower. Although simple, these solar concentrators are quite far from the theoretical maximum concen-tration. For example, the parabolic-trough concen-tration gives about 1/3 of the theoretical maximum for the design acceptance angle, that is, for the same overall tolerances for the system. Approaching the theoretical maximum may be achieved by using more elaborate concentrators based on nonimaging optics.

Different types of concentrators produce different peak temperatures and correspondingly varying thermodynamic efficiencies, due to differences in the way that they track the sun and focus light. New innovations in CSP technology are leading systems to become more and more cost-effective. The tem-plate is used to format your paper and style the text. All margins, column widths, line spaces, and text fonts are prescribed; please do not alter them. You may note peculiarities. For example, the head mar-gin in this template measures proportionately more than is customary. This measurement and others are deliberate, using specifications that anticipate your paper as one part of the entire proceedings, and not as an independent document. Please do not revise a

Finally, complete content and organizational editing before formatting. Please take note of the following items when proofreading spelling and grammar.

A. Abbreviations and Acronyms (Heading 2)Define abbreviations and acronyms the first time they are

used in the text, even after they have been defined in the abstract. Abbreviations such as IEEE and SI do not have to be defined. Do not use abbreviations in the title or heads unless they are unavoidable.

B. Units Use either SI or CGS as primary units. (SI units are

encouraged.) English units may be used as secondary units (in parentheses). An exception would be the use of English units as identifiers in trade, such as “3.5-inch disk drive”.

Avoid combining SI and CGS units, such as current in amperes and magnetic field in oersteds. This often leads to confusion because equations do not balance dimensionally. If you must use mixed units, clearly state the units for each quantity that you use in an equation.

Do not mix complete spellings and abbreviations of units: “Wb/m2” or “webers per square meter”, not “webers/m2”. Spell out units when they appear in text: “. . . a few henries”, not “. . . a few H”.

Use a zero before decimal points: “0.25”, not “.25”. Use “cm3”, not “cc”. (bullet list)

C. EquationsThe equations are an exception to the prescribed

specifications of this template. You will need to determine whether or not your equation should be typed using either the Times New Roman or the Symbol font (please no other font). To create multileveled equations, it may be necessary to treat the equation as a graphic and insert it into the text after your paper is styled.

Number equations consecutively. Equation numbers, within parentheses, are to position flush right, as in Eq. 1, using a right tab stop. To make your equations more compact, you may use the solidus ( / ), the exp function, or appropriate exponents. Italicize Roman symbols for quantities and variables, but not Greek symbols. Use a long dash rather than a hyphen for a minus sign. Punctuate equations with commas or periods when they are part of a sentence, as in

Note that the equation is centered using a center tab stop. Be sure that the symbols in your equation have been defined before or immediately following the equation. Use “Eq. 1” or “Equation 1”, not “(1)”, especially at the beginning of a sentence: “Equation 1 is . . .”

D. Some Common Mistakes The word “data” is plural, not singular. The subscript for the permeability of vacuum 0, and

other common scientific constants, is zero with subscript formatting, not a lowercase letter “o”.

In American English, commas, semi-/colons, periods, question and exclamation marks are located within quotation marks only when a complete thought or name is cited, such as a title or full quotation. When quotation marks are used, instead of a bold or italic

typeface, to highlight a word or phrase, punctuation should appear outside of the quotation marks. A parenthetical phrase or statement at the end of a sentence is punctuated outside of the closing parenthesis (like this). (A parenthetical sentence is punctuated within the parentheses.)

A graph within a graph is an “inset”, not an “insert”. The word alternatively is preferred to the word “alternately” (unless you really mean something that alternates).

Do not use the word “essentially” to mean “approximately” or “effectively”.

In your paper title, if the words “that uses” can accurately replace the word “using”, capitalize the “u”; if not, keep using lower-cased.

Be aware of the different meanings of the homophones “affect” and “effect”, “complement” and “compliment”, “discreet” and “discrete”, “principal” and “principle”.

Do not confuse “imply” and “infer”. The prefix “non” is not a word; it should be joined to

the word it modifies, usually without a hyphen. There is no period after the “et” in the Latin

abbreviation “et al.”. The abbreviation “i.e.” means “that is”, and the

abbreviation “e.g.” means “for example”.An excellent style manual for science writers is given by

Young [7].

II. USING THE TEMPLATE

After the text edit has been completed, the paper is ready for the template. Duplicate the template file by using the Save As command, and use the naming convention prescribed by your conference for the name of your paper. In this newly created file, highlight all of the contents and import your prepared text file. You are now ready to style your paper; use the scroll down window on the left of the MS Word Formatting toolbar.

A. Authors and AffiliationsThe template is designed so that author affiliations are not

repeated each time for multiple authors of the same affiliation. Please keep your affiliations as succinct as possible (for example, do not differentiate among departments of the same organization). This template was designed for two affiliations.

1) For Author/s of Only One Affiliation (Heading 3): To change the default, adjust the template as follows.

a) Selection (Heading 4): Highlight all author and affiliation lines.

b) Change Number of Columns: Select Format >Columns >Presets > One Column.

c) Deletion: Delete the author and affiliation lines for the second affiliation.

2) For Authors of More than Two Affiliations: To change the default, adjust the template as follows.

a) Selection: Highlight all author and affiliation lines.b) Change Number of Columns: Select Format >

Columns > Presets > One Column. c) Highlight Author and Affiliation Lines of Affiliation 1

and Copy this Selection.

We suggest that you use a text box to insert a graphic (ideally 300 dpi, with all fonts embedded) because, in an MSW document, this method is somewhat more stable than directly inserting a picture.

To have non-visible rules on Example of a figure caption. (figure caption) your frame, use the MSWord pull-down menu, select Format > Borders and Shading > Select ”None”.

d) Formatting: Insert one hard return immediately after the last character of the last affiliation line. Then paste down the copy of affiliation 1. Repeat as necessary for each additional affiliation.

e) Reassign Number of Columns: Place your cursor to the right of the last character of the last affiliation line of an even numbered affiliation (e.g., if there are five affiliations, place your cursor at end of fourth affiliation). Drag the cursor up to highlight all of the above author and affiliation lines. Go to Format > Columns and select “2 Columns”. If you have an odd number of affiliations, the final affiliation will be centered on the page; all previous will be in two columns.

B. Identify the HeadingsHeadings, or heads, are organizational devices that guide

the reader through your paper. There are two types: component heads and text heads.

Component heads identify the different components of your paper and are not topically subordinate to each other. Examples include Acknowledgments and References and, for these, the correct style to use is “Heading 5”. Use “figure caption” for your Figure captions, and “table head” for your table title. Run-in heads, such as “Abstract”, will require you to apply a style (in this case, italic) in addition to the style provided by the drop down menu to differentiate the head from the text.

Text heads organize the topics on a relational, hierarchical basis. For example, the paper title is the primary text head because all subsequent material relates and elaborates on this one topic. If there are two or more sub-topics, the next level head (uppercase Roman numerals) should be used and, conversely, if there are not at least two sub-topics, then no subheads should be introduced. Styles named “Heading 1”, “Heading 2”, “Heading 3”, and “Heading 4” are prescribed.

C. Figures and TablesPlace figures and tables at the top and bottom of columns.

Avoid placing them in the middle of columns. Large figures and tables may span across both columns. Figure captions should be below the figures; table captions should appear above the tables. Insert figures and tables after they are cited in the text. Use the abbreviation “Fig. 1” in the text, and “Figure 1” at the beginning of a sentence.

Use 8 point Times New Roman for figure labels. Use words rather than symbols or abbreviations when writing figure-axis labels to avoid confusing the reader. As an example, write the quantity “Magnetization”, or “Magnetization, M”, not just “M”.

If including units in the label, present them within parentheses. Do not label axes only with units. In the example, write “Magnetization (A/m)” or “Magnetization {A[m(1)]}”, not just “A/m”. Do not label axes with a ratio of quantities and units. For example, write “Temperature (K)”, not “Temperature/K”.

D. FootnotesUse footnotes sparingly (or not at all) and place them at the

bottom of the column on the page on which they are referenced. Use Times 8-point type, single-spaced.

To help your readers, avoid using footnotes altogether and include necessary peripheral observations in the text (within parentheses, if you prefer, as in this sentence).

Number footnotes separately from reference numbers, and in superscripts. Do not put footnotes in the reference list. Use letters for table footnotes.

TABLE I. TABLE TYPE STYLES

Table Head Table Column Head

Table column subhead Subhead Subhead

copy More table copya

a. Sample of a table footnote. (table footnote)

Fig. 1. Example of a figure caption. (figure caption)

III. COPYRIGHT FORMS

You must submit the IEEE Electronic Copyright Form (ECF) as described in your author-kit message. THIS FORM MUST BE SUBMITTED IN ORDER TO PUBLISH YOUR PAPER.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The preferred spelling of the word “acknowledgment” in America is without an “e” after the “g”. Avoid the stilted expression, “One of us (R. B. G.) thanks . . .” Instead, try “R. B. G. thanks”. Put applicable sponsor acknowledgments here; DO NOT place them on the first page of your paper or as a footnote.

REFERENCES

List and number all bibliographical references in 9-point Times, single-spaced, at the end of your paper. When referenced in the text, enclose the citation number in square brackets, for example: [1]. Where appropriate, include the name(s) of editors of referenced books. The template will number citations consecutively within brackets [1]. The sentence punctuation follows the bracket [2]. Refer simply to the reference number, as in “[3]”—do not use “Ref. [3]” or “reference [3]”. Do not use reference citations as nouns of a sentence (e.g., not: “as the writer explains in [1]”).

Unless there are six authors or more give all authors’ names and do not use “et al.”. Papers that have not been published, even if they have been submitted for publication, should be cited as “unpublished” [4]. Papers that have been accepted for publication should be cited as “in press” [5]. Capitalize only the first word in a paper title, except for proper nouns and element symbols.

For papers published in translation journals, please give the English citation first, followed by the original foreign-language citation [6].[1] G. Eason, B. Noble, and I. N. Sneddon, “On certain integrals of

Lipschitz-Hankel type involving products of Bessel functions,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, vol. A247, pp. 529–551, April 1955. (references)

[2] J. Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 3rd ed., vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1892, pp.68–73.

[3] I. S. Jacobs and C. P. Bean, “Fine particles, thin films and exchange anisotropy,” in Magnetism, vol. III, G. T. Rado and H. Suhl, Eds. New York: Academic, 1963, pp. 271–350.

[4] K. Elissa, “Title of paper if known,” unpublished.[5] R. Nicole, “Title of paper with only first word capitalized,” J.

Name Stand. Abbrev., in press.[6] Y. Yorozu, M. Hirano, K. Oka, and Y. Tagawa, “Electron

spectroscopy studies on magneto-optical media and plastic

substrate interface,” IEEE Transl. J. Magn. Japan, vol. 2, pp. 740–741, August 1987 [Digests 9th Annual Conf. Magnetics Japan, p. 301, 1982].

[7] M. Young, The Technical Writer's Handbook. Mill Valley, CA: University Science, 1989.