Solar Thermal Articles
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Solar thermal power coming to a boil
After emerging in 2006 from 15 years of hibernation, the solar thermal power industry experienced a surge in 2007, with 100 megawatts of new capacity coming online worldwide. During the 1990s, cheap fossil fuels, combined with a loss of state and federal incentives, put a damper on solar thermal power development. However, recent increases in energy prices, escalating concerns about global ...
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Exergetic analysis of passive and active solar stills
This paper presents an exergetic analysis for passive and active solar distillation systems. The analysis is based on mass, energy and exergy balance equations, which has not been attempted in the past for active solar stills. In the present paper, it has been tried to compare the hourly exergy and thermal efficiency of passive and active solar stills. The values of hourly exergy and thermal ...
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Exergy analysis of a rock bed thermal storage system
In this paper, a thermodynamic procedure is presented to analyse energy and exergy balances of a rock bed thermal storage system. The thermal behaviour is described by means of a control volume that includes three subsystems: the solar collectors, the fluid distribution system and the storage chamber. Solar-to-thermal energy conversion was obtained by means of a solar collector at a fixed airflow ...
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Propensity to export and effects on cluster development: a comparative study of the Cyprus and Greek solar thermal clusters
Access to sophisticated demand is critical for cluster upgrading in developing countries. Despite this, the role of exports in cluster development has not been adequately researched. This study tries to answer two questions; what are the factors that increase the propensity of a cluster to successfully engage in exports and how exports affect cluster upgrading. In order to isolate the effect of ...
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Provisional figures for the EU solar thermal market 2007
After four years of very dynamic growth, the European solar thermal (ST) market registers a 10% decrease in sales in 2007. Many factors contributed to a 33% decline of Germany’s market. ESTIF urges policy makers to implement solar obligations to speed-up the market penetration of solar thermal. “We have seen very positive trends in some countries, but a dramatic decline in the German solar ...
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Heating and Cooling in the upcoming EU Renewables Directive
It is crucial that the future EU Renewables Directive includes effective measures to promote renewable heating and cooling (RES-H). To reach the 20% target by 2020, almost half of the growth in renewables production has to come from RES-H alone. Heating is a primary human need. Supply shortage recently became a credible scenario. While reducing this risk, RES-H can achieve substantial cost ...
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Solar thermal power plants for the Spanish electricity market
Solar thermal power plants are at present the cheapest technology for solar electricity production. At good sites Levelised Electricity Costs (LEC) of 11 Ct/kWh have been achieved in commercially operated power plants. Economy of scale and further technical improvements will reduce the LEC for future projects. On the 27th of March 2004 in Spain the existing feed-in-law has been modified in order ...
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Solar Water Distillation System, Solar Thermal Energy Conversion System
Innovation in Water and Energy Access to Water and Energy is a Human Right and Fundamental Freedom to share the “gift of life”. The US. Patent and Trademark Office have awarded two Patents US 6,494,995 B1 for Solar Water Distillation System and US 7,127,894 B2 for Solar Thermal Energy Conversion System to the Inventor Mr.Hammam Battah, P.E, having 45+ years of Professional Engineering ...
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A solar thermal power system in the city of Thessalonica with the use of the Pinch method for entropy minimisation
The objective of this paper is to create a small power plant, (producing 2 MW annually), which will be using solar energy as a driving fuel. The system is made up of three sub-systems: a set of Solar Collectors (SCS), a Rankine power cycle and a Heat Exchanger Network (HEN). Two cases with variations in the operation of the solar collectors and the heat exchanger network will be examined. The ...
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Solar Thermal Action Plan for Europe
Ten years ago, the European Commission published its White Paper on Renewables, proposing a Community Strategy and Action Plan. Since then, European Directives to promote renewables in the electricity sector and in the transport sector have been successful in kicking off substantial growth in these two sectors. However, the renewable heating and cooling (RES-H) sector has been neglected at EU ...
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A brighter future for solar in Texas
I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. - Thomas Edison, in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, 1931 According to the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO), Texas has the greatest solar energy potential of any state in the country. “If photovoltaic (PV) systems operating ...
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Renewable energy programmes in India
With a strong industrial base and successful commercialisation of technologies in renewable energy, India is in a position today to offer state-of-the-art technology to other developing countries and is poised to play a leading role in the global movement towards sustainable energy development. India has a separate ministry to promote renewable energy sources, which has been named Ministry of ...
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Thermodynamic analysis of an air solar collector
The paper presents the experimental study of an air solar installation with a collecting area AC = 4.2m² and variable working fluid flow rate in the range 0.02÷0.06 kg/s. The experimental data are processed statistically through thermodynamic analysis, using energy (semi-empirical) and exergy methods. The aim of the paper is to establish the optimal air flow rate through this solar thermal system ...
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A method for evaluating and selecting renewable and non-renewable energy technologies
This paper offers a simple method of evaluating the existing renewable and non-renewable energy technologies. The evaluation method is based on the weights given to the importance of six selection criteria: the economic viability; the conversion efficiency; the present level of the technological development; the environmental impacts; the after-production clean-up cost; the renewability and ...
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Renewable energy technologies in Nepal
Nepal, one of the least-developed countries, has a per capita energy consumption of about 336 kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe), which is much below the world average of 1,474 kgoe. Around 85.27% of the total energy consumption comes from traditional energy resources and only 0.48% from renewable sources. About 40% of the total population has access to electricity. This 40% uses 33% from the ...
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High efficient utilisation of solar energy with newly developed parabolic trough collectors (SOLITEM PTC) for chilling and steam production in a hotel at the Mediterranean coast of Turkey
Parabolic trough collectors are getting introduced into application for solar process steam generation and high efficient solar chilling. SOLITEM GmbH in Aachen develops and produces its PTC 1800 for these applications. The first installation is made in the Iberotel Sarigermepark in Turkey. Energy supply facilitates, so that hotels and hospitals can economically be optimised by additional ...
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Solarthermal parabolic trough power plants with integrated storage capacity
Parabolic trough power plants use concentrated direct insulation for steam generation in a Rankine cycle. The fundamentals for direct steam generation in parabolic troughs have been developed in recent years, the feasibility was successfully demonstrated at a solar powered test facility reaching steam temperatures of 400°C at a maximum pressure of 100 bar. Important components for the accelerated ...
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A novel underground solar thermal heat storage unit cum heat exchanger for non air-conditioned buildings
A novel passive space conditioning configuration is presented, integrating a Solar Collector System, Underground Storage Tank and Novel Heat Exchanger. This Underground Solar Thermal Heat Exchanger (USTHE) provided improved sensible heating/cooling of air by employing a Novel Heat Exchanger (NHX). The dynamic performance of the storage tank in USTHE is modelled using the finite difference method ...
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Renewable energy technologies and the European industry
The European renewable energy industry has the potential to be a world leader. This has been achieved within the European region for specific technologies, through a set of policy activities at a national and regional level, driven primarily by employment, energy self-sufficiency and industrial competitiveness. Using the experience gained in recent years, European industry has the opportunity to ...
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Full-energy-chain greenhouse-gas emissions: a comparison between nuclear power, hydropower, solar power and wind power
Fair comparison of the climate impacts from different energy sources can be made only by accounting for the emissions of all relevant greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the full energy chain (FENCH) of the energy sources. FENCH-GHG emission factors of most of the non-fossil fuel energies are lower than those of the fossil fuels that are in the range of 500-1200 g CO2/kW h(e). The improvement rates ...
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