Floating Solar Chimney Technology for Desertec
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2nd WSEAS/IASME International Conference on RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES (RES'08) Corfu, Greece, October 26-28, 2008 FLOATING SOLAR CHIMNEY TECHNOLOGY FOR DESERTEC Christos D. Papageorgiou Associate Prof National Technical University of Athens Nymfon 1b, 14563 Athens Greece Abstract: - Solar chimney technology is a very French president Nicolas Sarkozy political initiative promising solar thermal electricity generating for a closer cooperation of MENA countries and EU. technology. Solar chimney power plants have three The solar chimney power plants are usually referred major parts. A large circular greenhouse, a tall as solar updraft power plants cylinder in the center of the greenhouse named solar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower chimney and a set of air turbines, around or in the and their proposed solar chimneys are reinforced solar chimney, geared to appropriate electric concrete structures. A low cost alternative of the generators. concrete solar chimney is the Floating Solar The technology is appropriate for desert or semi Chimney (FSC) www.floatingsolarchimney.gr. The desert areas with high solar irradiation and limited solar chimney power plants, due to their similarity to strong winds or sand storms. The technology is cost hydroelectric power plants, were named by the competitive to any other solar technology (PVs or author Solar Aero Electric Power Plants (SAEPPs). CSPs) and does not demand any water for its In the previously mentioned sites there are a lot of operation. Due to the ground thermal storage, the references related to the solar chimney technology. technology it is generating a continuous electric The solar chimney technology was experimentally power output 24x365, thus can enter to the electric tested in Manzanares of Spain, where a small grid at least up to 50%. prototype of 50 KW was built in 1982 and All these benefits are making the FSC technology successfully tested for 6 years, by the team of Prof the most appropriate technology for the desertec J. Schlaich. Part of the results by the operation of project. The desertec project (www.DESERTEC.org this small demo is appearing in the book [1] and in ) is proposing the construction of a HVDC electric the reference [2] . grid, connecting Europe with MENA area. Solar A thermodynamic cycle analysis of the solar electricity could be generating in MENA area and chimney power plant operation was given by Prof transmitted to Europe though the HVDC grid. The Backstrom and his associates in a series of papers desertec project is supported by French president [3,4,and 5]. Nicolas Sarkozy political initiative for a closer Floating solar chimney technology was presented by cooperation of MENA countries and EU. the author in a series of papers [6,7,8,and 9]. Most recently the author presented a paper [10] for the Key-Words: - Floating Solar Chimney Desertec application of the FSC technology in desert areas of project China with adequate horizontal irradiation. Similar desert areas, even with higher solar irradiation, exist 1. Introduction in USA, South America, Australia, south and North Africa and India. It is estimating that with FSC technology, operating The purpose of this paper is to present the Floating on 1% efficiency and using a 2-3% of the existing solar chimney (FSC) technology and to give the unused desert or semi desert areas, we can generate important benefits of this technology that make it the at least 50% of the world electricity demand. proper candidate for the Desertec project. According In European countries there are places of adequate to desertec the huge desert or semi desert areas of solar horizontal irradiation but the land is very the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries expensive because there are no desert or semi desert can be used for solar electricity generation that could areas. However in the nearby to Europe MENA be transmitted to European countries though a countries there are huge unused desert or semi desert HVDC grid. The desertec project is supported by ISSN: 1790-5095 216 ISBN: 978-960-474-015-4 2nd WSEAS/IASME International Conference on RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES (RES'08) Corfu, Greece, October 26-28, 2008 areas with appropriate solar characteristics that can generators that transform to electricity a part of the be used for solar electricity generation. This solar thermodynamic energy of the moving air mass. electricity can be transmitted to the European The floating in the air, lighter than air, “Floating electric grid through an appropriate HVDC or Solar Chimney” (FSC) is a low cost alternative of UHVDC electric grid. the reinforced concrete solar chimney structure. The Floating Solar Chimney technology is the FSCs can easily be constructed to heights up to 1 appropriate technology for the desertec project, the Km. The figure (1) is representing the FSC power main reasons are: plant and its operation. a. The technology is cost competitive to any other solar technology. This means that FSC technology can generate electricity in much lower direct cost per produced KW in comparison to any other solar electricity generating technology. b. The FSC technology is operating continuously (24x365) thus can replace fuel consuming base load power plants in the destination countries. c. The technology demands no water for its operation, as for example demands the concentrating solar power plants (CSPs) for cleaning and cooling of their mirrors. Clean water is very valuable in desert or semi-desert areas of MENA. Figure1.Floating Solar Chimney Power Plant in 2. Floating Solar Chimney (FSC) operation technology presentation Due to its patented [11] construction the FSC as a A Floating Solar Chimney (FSC) power plant is free standing lighter than air structure is bending made of three basic parts: when external winds appear as shown in the figure(2). • A large solar collector with a transparent roof supported a few meters above the ground, open at its perimeter (the greenhouse). • A tall lighter than air cylinder in the center of the solar collector (the Floating Solar Chimney ) Direction of Wind • A set of air turbines geared to appropriate electric generators placed in a circular path Main around the FSC (the turbo-generators) Chimney The solar irradiation warms the ground below the made of roof of the greenhouse and consequently the air parts inside it. The warm air becomes lighter than the Heavy ambient air and tends to escape though the solar Mobile Base Chimney chimney, up drafting to the upper atmospheric Seat Folding Lower layers. New ambient air is entering in the Part Greenhouse through its open periphery that, as is moving towards the FSC, becomes warm by the Fig 2. Schematic diagram of the FSC solar irradiation and is also up drafting through the FSC etc. Thus the first two parts of the FSC power A small part of this cylinder is shown in the next plant form a huge passive thermodynamic machine figure(3). circulating the air from the ground to the upper As shown in the figure the FSC is made by a series layers of the atmosphere. In the path of the airflow of of the warm air are placed appropriate air turbines, successive tubular balloon rings made of fabric. with inlet guiding vanes, geared to electric ISSN: 1790-5095 217 ISBN: 978-960-474-015-4 2nd WSEAS/IASME International Conference on RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES (RES'08) Corfu, Greece, October 26-28, 2008 to electricity through their air turbines geared to their appropriate electric generators. Furthermore both power plants efficiencies are proportional to their Rin g heights (falling water height or up drafting air height). In fig. (4) The annual efficiency of a typical SAEPP is shown as function of its FSC height. SAEPP of 4sqKm solar collector in a place of annual solar irradiation 1750KW/sqm Balloon 2.5 with gas 2 Compre fab ssed air ric 1.5 Fig 3. A small part of the fabric cylinder of the FSC % efficiency 1 The polyester fabric of the tubular rings and the rest 0.5 parts of the FSC, is similar to the polyester fabric already used for the construction of air balloons or 0 airships. An extensive presentation of “light” 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 variable height of Floating Solar Chimney in m of internal diameter 60m structures is given by Prof Beukers in [11]. These Figure 4. Annual efficiency of a typical SAEPP as tubular balloon rings can become lighter than air function of its FSC height containing special balloons filled with lighter than air gas (He or NH3). In order to keep the rigidity of The annual efficiency is defined as the ratio of the the structure the balloon tubular rings should be over produced electricity in KWh to the annual solar pressed with ambient air. Thus the whole fabric irradiation arriving on the greenhouse roof. For cylinder can not be deformed by external winds or example if in the place of a installation of a SAEPP by the operational sub pressure and can be a free the annual horizontal irradiation is 2000 KWh/m2 standing lighter than air structure. Through this free and the greenhouse of the SAEPP has a roof of 4 standing cylinder the warm air of the greenhouse is Km2 (4 million m2), 8000 GWh/year irradiation solar up drafting. When external winds appear the energy is arriving on its roof. If its FSC height is structure is bending due to its inclining special 900m than approximately by the diagram its patented heavy base. Of course its up drafting efficiency is 1.0 % thus the annual electricity operation is not interrupted by the inclining position production is 80 GWh/year. of the structure, however the operating height of the The annual efficiency, see J.