Large Scale Solar Energy Complex 2010-2011
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Large Scale Solar Energy Complex 2010-2011 Final Report Group 2 Samuel Adesilu Sadra Bolourian Thomas Brown Amy Chalom Matthew Gregory Katherine Marsh Large Scale Solar Energy Complex Group 2 1 Executive Summary The purpose of this feasibility report is to assess the feasibility of providing a significant proportion of the energy demand of 2,000 inhabitants for a village from a renewable solar energy source. The report looks at various different solar collector technologies available, along with a number of different storage technologies, and critically assesses their viability to be used in the South East of England. A number of solar technologies and storage mediums have been considered throughout the duration of this report and a number of them have been discounted due to their feasibility for use on this project. These technologies include Solar Up-draft towers, Concentrating solar thermal power, flywheels, pumped water storage and super capacitors. This leaves a number of technologies that have been deemed feasible to be used to some extent. These are Green Tariffs, Investment in Free Solar Panels, PV cells, Rechargeable battery technologies, Ground Sourced Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal Hot Water. These technologies have been researched in detail and included in various design cases. These were carried out to calculate in detail how the project brief is met by the various design cases along with the viability of the design cases. The first design case was a GSHP system for an individual house which looks at installing a GSHP to provide the space heating requirements, along with the option to include domestic hot water heating. A solar thermal hot water case; where Evacuated solar tubes and flat plate collectors are designed to meet the most optimum proportion of the hot water demand. Both of these options also assessed the governments Renewable Heat Incentives and the affect it has on the feasibility of the projects. Photovoltaic, PV, cells system is the third design case to be evaluated. The system is designed to take advantage of the governments feed in tariffs, and as such has been designed to be a solar farm of 5MW output. The final design case is another PV cell system installed onto individual houses. Both of the PV systems have been anyalsised using government feed in and generation tariffs and incentives. A series of system designs were carried out to ensure optimisation of the technologies in a modular house design. The integrations link together the technologies to limit the Executive Summary Pg 2 of 170 AUTHOR Large Scale Solar Energy Complex Group 2 disadvantages of each technology and provide a more feasible solution to the design brief. The first integration was combining the ground sourced heat pump with the solar thermal hot water systems. The integration design has shown the optimum solution to be for Evacuated Solar Tubes to be installed for providing domestic hot water, with a ground sourced heat pump to provide the space heating for an individual house. The integration of the electrical systems has revealed that a system of pv cells, batteries and grid connection along with feed in and generation tariffs will be the most feasible integrated system to provide electrical energy on an individual scale. A number of assumptions were made during this feasibility study and an analysis of these has been conducted to determine their effect on the feasibility of the final recommendations; a 5MW solar farm; and an individual house with GSHP, EST and PV cells. The first of these is instillation date and the possibility of delays implementing the systems. The capital costs were also investigated to determine their effect on the systems. The power output of the system has been varied to study the effect of the assumptions made during the design processes. Government incentives have also been analysed due to the risk of these being cut. A change in location has been researched and the effect on the change of location calculated. It has been shown that large solar farms located along the same latitude or north of Dundee is not feasible. The optimum location in the UK is Cornwall, but there is only a marginal improvement above the Isle of Wight and the rest of the South East of England. Both proposed system are able to be scaled to 20,000 people, however the modular individual system is easier to scale up due to the fact the technologies are installed into individual houses independently of each other. Final recommendations/conclusions The report concludes that two different solutions are feasible, a 5MW solar farm and an individual, small-scale system; comprising of a Ground Sourced Heat Pump, Evacuated Solar tubes, Photovoltaic Cells and Batteries. The two different systems fulfil the requirements in different ways are suitable for different purposes. The 5MW Solar farm Executive Summary Pg 3 of 170 AUTHOR Large Scale Solar Energy Complex Group 2 2 Contents 1 Executive Summary ................................................................................................. 2 2 Contents ................................................................................................................... 4 3 List of Figures .......................................................................................................... 6 4 List of Tables ............................................................................................................ 8 5 Nomenclature ......................................................................................................... 10 5.1 Acronyms ........................................................................................................ 10 5.2 Symbols ........................................................................................................... 11 6 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 14 6.1 Motivation ....................................................................................................... 14 6.1.1 Energy Crisis ........................................................................................... 14 6.1.2 Fossil Fuel Depletion and Political Instability ......................................... 14 6.1.3 Fossil Fuels and Global Warming ............................................................ 15 6.1.4 Action is Required ................................................................................... 16 6.1.5 UK Government Legislation and the Kyoto Protocol .............................. 19 6.2 Brief ................................................................................................................ 21 6.3 Scope ............................................................................................................... 21 6.4 Objectives ........................................................................................................ 22 7 System Boundaries ................................................................................................. 23 7.1 Location........................................................................................................... 23 7.1.1 Land ......................................................................................................... 23 7.1.2 Meteorological Data ................................................................................ 23 7.1.3 Financial Considerations ........................... 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Bookmark not defined. 7.2 Electricity ........................................................................................................ 24 7.2.1 Energy Demand ....................................................................................... 24 7.2.2 Energy Culture ......................................................................................... 26 7.2.3 Government Subsides .............................................................................. 26 8 Research ................................................................................................................. 34 8.1 Infeasible Options ............................................................................................ 34 8.1.1 Solar Up-draught Tower .......................................................................... 34 8.1.2 CSP .......................................................................................................... 40 8.1.3 Flywheels ................................................................................................ 53 8.1.4 Pumped Water Storage ............................................................................ 55 8.1.5 Supercapacitors ........................................................................................ 58 8.2 Remaining Opportunities ................................................................................. 59 8.2.1 Green Tariffs ........................................................................................... 59 8.2.2 Investment Free Solar Panels ................................................................... 60 8.2.3 PV ............................................................................................................ 64 8.2.4 Rechargeable Battery Technologies ......................................................... 65 8.2.5 GSHP ....................................................................................................... 73 8.2.6 Solar Thermal Hot Water ......................................................................... 80 9 System Design .......................................................................................................