Concentrated solar power (CSP, also known as concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal) systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver.^[1] Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is converted to heat (solar thermal energy), which drives a heat engine (usually a steam turbine) connected to an electrical power generator^[2][3][4] or powers a thermochemical reaction.^[5][6][7]

As of 2021, global installed capacity of concentrated solar power stood at 6.8 GW.^[8] As of 2023, with the inclusion of three new CSP projects in construction in China^[9] and in Dubai in the UAE,^[9] the total is now 7.5 GW. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) maintains a full database of the current state of all CSP plants globally, whether under construction, shut down, or operating. The data includes comprehensive details such as capacity, type of power block components, number of thermal energy storage hours, and turbine sizes.^[10]

Comparison between CSP and other electricity sources

As a thermal energy generating power station, CSP has more in common with thermal power stations such as coal, gas, or geothermal. A CSP plant can incorporate thermal energy storage, which stores energy either in the form of sensible heat or as latent heat (for example, using molten salt), which enables these plants to continue supplying electricity whenever it is needed, day or night. This makes CSP a dispatchable form of solar. Dispatchable renewable energy is particularly valuable in places where there is already a high penetration of photovoltaics (PV), such as California,^[11] because demand for electric power peaks near sunset just as PV capacity ramps down (a phenomenon referred to as duck curve).^[12]

CSP is often compared to photovoltaic solar (PV) since they both use solar energy. While solar PV experienced huge growth during the 2010s, due to falling prices,^[13][14] solar CSP growth has been slow due to technical difficulties and high prices. In 2017, CSP represented less than 2% of worldwide installed capacity of solar electricity plants.^[15] However, CSP can more easily store energy during the night, making it more competitive with dispatchable generators and baseload plants.^{[16][17][18][19]}

The DEWA project in Dubai, under construction in 2019, held the world record for lowest CSP price in 2017 at US$73 per MWh^[20] for its 700 MW combined trough and tower project: 600 MW of trough, 100 MW of tower with 15 hours of thermal energy storage daily. Base-load CSP tariff in the extremely dry Atacama region of Chile reached below $50/MWh in 2017 auctions.^[21][22]

History

A legend has it that Archimedes used a "burning glass" to concentrate sunlight on the invading Roman fleet and repel them from Syracuse. In 1973 a Greek scientist, Dr. Ioannis Sakkas, curious about whether Archimedes could really have destroyed the Roman fleet in 212 BC, lined up nearly 60 Greek sailors, each holding an oblong mirror tipped to catch the sun's rays and direct them at a tar-covered plywood silhouette 49 m (160 ft) away. The ship caught fire after a few minutes; however, historians continue to doubt the Archimedes story.^[23]

In 1866, Auguste Mouchout used a parabolic trough to produce steam for the first solar steam engine. The first patent for a solar collector was obtained by the Italian Alessandro Battaglia in Genoa, Italy, in 1886. Over the following years, invеntors such as John Ericsson and Frank Shuman developed concentrating solar-powered dеvices for irrigation, refrigеration, and locomоtion. In 1913 Shuman finished a 55 horsepower (41 kW) parabolic solar thermal energy station in Maadi, Egypt for irrigation.^{[24][25][26][27]} The first solar-power system using a mirror dish was built by Dr. R.H. Goddard, who was already well known for his research on liquid-fueled rockets and wrote an article in 1929 in which he asserted that all the previous obstacles had been addressed.^[28]

Professor Giovanni Francia (1911–1980) designed and built the first concentrated-solar plant, which entered into operation in Sant'Ilario, near Genoa, Italy in 1968. This plant had the architecture of today's power tower plants with a solar receiver in the center of a field of solar collectors. The plant was able to produce 1 MW with superheated steam at 100 bar and 500 °C.^[29] The 10 MW Solar One power tower was developed in Southern California in 1981. Solar One was converted into Solar Two in 1995, implementing a new design with a molten salt mixture (60% sodium nitrate, 40% potassium nitrate) as the receiver working fluid and as a storage medium. The molten salt approach proved effective, and Solar Two operated successfully until it was decommissioned in 1999.^[30] The parabolic-trough technology of the nearby Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS), begun in 1984, was more workable. The 354 MW SEGS was the largest solar power plant in the world, until 2014.

No commercial concentrated solar was constructed from 1990 when SEGS was completed until 2006 when the Compact linear Fresnel reflector system at Liddell Power Station in Australia was built. Few other plants were built with this design although the 5 MW Kimberlina Solar Thermal Energy Plant opened in 2009.

In 2007, 75 MW Nevada Solar One was built, a trough design and the first large plant since SEGS. Between 2009 and 2013, Spain built over 40 parabolic trough systems, standardized in 50 MW blocks.

Due to the success of Solar Two, a commercial power plant, called Solar Tres Power Tower, was built in Spain in 2011, later renamed Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant. Gemasolar's results paved the way for further plants of its type. Ivanpah Solar Power Facility was constructed at the same time but without thermal storage, using natural gas to preheat water each morning.

Most concentrated solar power plants use the parabolic trough design, instead of the power tower or Fresnel systems. There have also been variations of parabolic trough systems like the integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) which combines troughs and conventional fossil fuel heat systems.

CSP was originally treated as a competitor to photovoltaics, and Ivanpah was built without energy storage, although Solar Two had included several hours of thermal storage. By 2015, prices for photovoltaic plants had fallen and PV commercial power was selling for 1⁄3 of contemporary CSP contracts.^[31][32] However, increasingly, CSP was being bid with 3 to 12 hours of thermal energy storage, making CSP a dispatchable form of solar energy.^[33] As such, it is increasingly seen as competing with natural gas and PV with batteries for flexible, dispatchable power.

Current technology

CSP is used to produce electricity (sometimes called solar thermoelectricity, usually generated through steam). Concentrated-solar technology systems 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 thermoelectricity). The solar concentrators used in CSP systems can often also be used to provide industrial process heating or cooling, such as in solar air conditioning.

Concentrating technologies exist in four optical types, namely parabolic trough, dish, concentrating linear Fresnel reflector, and solar power tower.^[34] Parabolic trough and concentrating linear Fresnel reflectors are classified as linear focus collector types, while dish and solar tower are point focus types. Linear focus collectors achieve medium concentration factors (50 suns and over), and point focus collectors achieve high concentration factors (over 500 suns). Although simple, these solar concentrators are quite far from the theoretical maximum concentration.^[35][36] For example, the parabolic-trough concentration 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.^[35][36][37]

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.^[38][39]

In 2023, Australia’s national science agency CSIRO tested a CSP arrangement in which tiny ceramic particles fall through the beam of concentrated solar energy, the ceramic particles capable of storing a greater amount of heat than molten salt, while not requiring a container that would diminish heat transfer.^[40]

Parabolic trough

A parabolic trough consists of a linear parabolic reflector that concentrates light onto a receiver positioned along the reflector's focal line. The receiver is a tube positioned at the longitudinal focal line of the parabolic mirror and filled with a working fluid. The reflector follows the sun during the daylight hours by tracking along a single axis. A working fluid (e.g. molten salt^[41]) is heated to 150–350 °C (302–662 °F) as it flows through the receiver and is then used as a heat source for a power generation system.^[42] Trough systems are the most developed CSP technology. The Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) plants in California, the world's first commercial parabolic trough plants, Acciona's Nevada Solar One near Boulder City, Nevada, and Andasol, Europe's first commercial parabolic trough plant are representative, along with Plataforma Solar de Almería's SSPS-DCS test facilities in Spain.^[43]

Enclosed trough

The design encapsulates the solar thermal system within a greenhouse-like glasshouse. The glasshouse creates a protected environment to withstand the elements that can negatively impact reliability and efficiency of the solar thermal system.^[44] Lightweight curved solar-reflecting mirrors are suspended from the ceiling of the glasshouse by wires. A single-axis tracking system positions the mirrors to retrieve the optimal amount of sunlight. The mirrors concentrate the sunlight and focus it on a network of stationary steel pipes, also suspended from the glasshouse structure.^[45] Water is carried throughout the length of the pipe, which is boiled to generate steam when intense solar radiation is applied. Sheltering the mirrors from the wind allows them to achieve higher temperature rates and prevents dust from building up on the mirrors.^[44]

GlassPoint Solar, the company that created the Enclosed Trough design, states its technology can produce heat for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) for about $5 per 290 kWh (1,000,000 BTU) in sunny regions, compared to between $10 and $12 for other conventional solar thermal technologies.^[46]

Solar power tower

A solar power tower consists of an array of dual-axis tracking reflectors (heliostats) that concentrate sunlight on a central receiver atop a tower; the receiver contains a heat-transfer fluid, which can consist of water-steam or molten salt. Optically a solar power tower is the same as a circular Fresnel reflector. The working fluid in the receiver is heated to 500–1000 °C (773–1,273 K or 932–1,832 °F) and then used as a heat source for a power generation or energy storage system.^[42] An advantage of the solar tower is the reflectors can be adjusted instead of the whole tower. Power-tower development is less advanced than trough systems, but they offer higher efficiency and better energy storage capability. Beam down tower application is also feasible with heliostats to heat the working fluid.^[47]

The Solar Two in Daggett, California and the CESA-1 in Plataforma Solar de Almeria Almeria, Spain, are the most representative demonstration plants. The Planta Solar 10 (PS10) in Sanlucar la Mayor, Spain, is the first commercial utility-scale solar power tower in the world. The 377 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, located in the Mojave Desert, was the largest CSP facility in the world, and uses three power towers.^[48] Ivanpah generated only 0.652 TWh (63%) of its energy from solar means, and the other 0.388 TWh (37%) was generated by burning natural gas.^[49][50][51]

Supercritical carbon dioxide can be used instead of steam as heat-transfer fluid for increased electricity production efficiency. However, because of the high temperatures in arid areas where solar power is usually located, it is impossible to cool down carbon dioxide below its critical temperature in the compressor inlet. Therefore, supercritical carbon dioxide blends with higher critical temperature are currently in development.

Fresnel reflectors

Fresnel reflectors are made of many thin, flat mirror strips to concentrate sunlight onto tubes through which working fluid is pumped. Flat mirrors allow more reflective surface in the same amount of space than a parabolic reflector, thus capturing more of the available sunlight, and they are much cheaper than parabolic reflectors.^[52] Fresnel reflectors can be used in various size CSPs.^[53][54]

Fresnel reflectors are sometimes regarded as a technology with a worse output than other methods. The cost efficiency of this model is what causes some to use this instead of others with higher output ratings. Some new models of Fresnel reflectors with Ray Tracing capabilities have begun to be tested and have initially proved to yield higher output than the standard version.^[55]

Dish Stirling

A dish Stirling or dish engine system consists of a stand-alone parabolic reflector that concentrates light onto a receiver positioned at the reflector's focal point. The reflector tracks the Sun along two axes. The working fluid in the receiver is heated to 250–700 °C (482–1,292 °F) and then used by a Stirling engine to generate power.^[42] Parabolic-dish systems provide high solar-to-electric efficiency (between 31% and 32%), and their modular nature provides scalability. The Stirling Energy Systems (SES), United Sun Systems (USS) and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) dishes at UNLV, and Australian National University's Big Dish in Canberra, Australia are representative of this technology. A world record for solar to electric efficiency was set at 31.25% by SES dishes at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) in New Mexico on 31 January 2008, a cold, bright day.^[56] According to its developer, Ripasso Energy, a Swedish firm, in 2015 its Dish Sterling system being tested in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa showed 34% efficiency.^[57] The SES installation in Maricopa, Phoenix was the largest Stirling Dish power installation in the world until it was sold to United Sun Systems. Subsequently, larger parts of the installation have been moved to China as part of the huge energy demand.

Solar thermal enhanced oil recovery

Heat from the sun can be used to provide steam used to make heavy oil less viscous and easier to pump. Solar power tower and parabolic troughs can be used to provide the steam which is used directly so no generators are required and no electricity is produced. Solar thermal enhanced oil recovery can extend the life of oilfields with very thick oil which would not otherwise be economical to pump.^[58]

CSP with thermal energy storage

In a CSP plant that includes storage, the solar energy is first used to heat the molten salt or synthetic oil which is stored providing thermal/heat energy at high temperature in insulated tanks.^[59][60] Later the hot molten salt (or oil) is used in a steam generator to produce steam to generate electricity by steam turbo generator as per requirement.^[61] Thus solar energy which is available in daylight only is used to generate electricity round the clock on demand as a load following power plant or solar peaker plant.^[62][63] The thermal storage capacity is indicated in hours of power generation at nameplate capacity. Unlike solar PV or CSP without storage, the power generation from solar thermal storage plants is dispatchable and self-sustainable similar to coal/gas-fired power plants, but without the pollution.^[64] CSP with thermal energy storage plants can also be used as cogeneration plants to supply both electricity and process steam round the clock. As of December 2018, CSP with thermal energy storage plants generation cost have ranged between 5 c € / kWh and 7 c € / kWh depending on good to medium solar radiation received at a location.^[65] Unlike solar PV plants, CSP with thermal energy storage plants can also be used economically round the clock to produce only process steam replacing pollution emitting fossil fuels. CSP plant can also be integrated with solar PV for better synergy.^[66][67][68]

CSP with thermal storage systems are also available using Brayton cycle with air instead of steam for generating electricity and/or steam round the clock. These CSP plants are equipped with gas turbine to generate electricity.^[69] These are also small in capacity (<0.4 MW) with flexibility to install in few acres area.^[69] Waste heat from the power plant can also be used for process steam generation and HVAC needs.^[70] In case land availability is not a limitation, any number of these modules can be installed up to 1000 MW with RAMS and cost advantage since the per MW cost of these units are cheaper than bigger size solar thermal stations.^[71]

Centralized district heating round the clock is also feasible with concentrated solar thermal storage plants.^[72]

Carbon neutral fuels production

Carbon neutral synthetic fuel production using concentrated solar thermal energy at nearly 1500 °C temperature is technically feasible and will be commercially viable in the near future as the costs of CSP plants decline.^[73] Also carbon neutral hydrogen can be produced with solar thermal energy (CSP) using Sulfur–iodine cycle, Hybrid sulfur cycle, Iron oxide cycle, Copper–chlorine cycle, Zinc–zinc oxide cycle, Cerium(IV) oxide–cerium(III) oxide cycle, etc.

Deployment around the world

An early plant operated in Sicily at Adrano. The US deployment of CSP plants started by 1984 with the SEGS plants. The last SEGS plant was completed in 1990. From 1991 to 2005, no CSP plants were built anywhere in the world. Global installed CSP-capacity increased nearly tenfold between 2004 and 2013 and grew at an average of 50 percent per year during the last five of those years, as the number of countries with installed CSP were growing ^[77]: 51 In 2013, worldwide installed capacity increased by 36% or nearly 0.9 gigawatt (GW) to more than 3.4 GW. The record for capacity installed was reached in 2014, corresponding to 925 MW, however, was followed by a decline caused by policy changes, the global financial crisis, and the rapid decrease in price of the photovoltaic cells. Nevertheless, total capacity reached 6800 MW in 2021.^[8]

Spain accounted for almost one third of the world's capacity, at 2,300 MW, despite no new capacity entering commercial operation in the country since 2013.^[76] The United States follows with 1,740 MW. Interest is also notable in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as China and India. There is a notable trend towards developing countries and regions with high solar radiation with several large plants under construction in 2017.

The global market was initially dominated by parabolic-trough plants, which accounted for 90% of CSP plants at one point.^[82]

Since about 2010, central power tower CSP has been favored in new plants due to its higher temperature operation – up to 565 °C (1,049 °F) vs. trough's maximum of 400 °C (752 °F) – which promises greater efficiency.

Among the larger CSP projects are the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility (392 MW) in the United States, which uses solar power tower technology without thermal energy storage, and the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station in Morocco,^[83] which combines trough and tower technologies for a total of 510 MW with several hours of energy storage.

Efficiency

The efficiency of a concentrating solar power system will depend on the technology used to convert the solar power to electrical energy, the operating temperature of the receiver and the heat rejection, thermal losses in the system, and the presence or absence of other system losses; in addition to the conversion efficiency, the optical system which concentrates the sunlight will also add additional losses.

Real-world systems claim a maximum conversion efficiency of 23-35% for "power tower" type systems, operating at temperatures from 250 to 565 °C, with the higher efficiency number assuming a combined cycle turbine. Dish Stirling systems, operating at temperatures of 550-750 °C, claim an efficiency of about 30%.^[84] Due to variation in sun incidence during the day, the average conversion efficiency achieved is not equal to these maximum efficiencies, and the net annual solar-to- electricity efficiencies are 7-20% for pilot power tower systems, and 12-25% for demonstration-scale Stirling dish systems.^[84]

Theory

The maximum conversion efficiency of any thermal to electrical energy system is given by the Carnot efficiency, which represents a theoretical limit to the efficiency that can be achieved by any system, set by the laws of thermodynamics. Real-world systems do not achieve the Carnot efficiency.

The conversion efficiency ${\displaystyle \eta }$ of the incident solar radiation into mechanical work depends on the thermal radiation properties of the solar receiver and on the heat engine (e.g. steam turbine). Solar irradiation is first converted into heat by the solar receiver with the efficiency ${\displaystyle \eta _{Receiver}}$ and subsequently the heat is converted into mechanical energy by the heat engine with the efficiency ${\displaystyle \eta _{mechanical}}$, using Carnot's principle.^[85][86] The mechanical energy is then converted into electrical energy by a generator. For a solar receiver with a mechanical converter (e.g., a turbine), the overall conversion efficiency can be defined as follows:

${\displaystyle \eta =\eta _{\mathrm {optics} }\cdot \eta _{\mathrm {receiver} }\cdot \eta _{\mathrm {mechanical} }\cdot \eta _{\mathrm {generator} }}$

where ${\displaystyle \eta _{\mathrm {optics} }}$ represents the fraction of incident light concentrated onto the receiver, ${\displaystyle \eta _{\mathrm {receiver} }}$ the fraction of light incident on the receiver that is converted into heat energy, ${\displaystyle \eta _{\mathrm {mechanical} }}$ the efficiency of conversion of heat energy into mechanical energy, and ${\displaystyle \eta _{\mathrm {generator} }}$ the efficiency of converting the mechanical energy into electrical power.

${\displaystyle {\mathrm{\eta <!--\; \eta \; -->}}_{}}$Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Concentrating_solar_power
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