Between 1984 and 1990 the Israeli company, Luz, built over 350MW of solar power plants in California. Luz utilized trough-shaped focusing mirrors for heating organic heat transfer fluid inside long tubes to ~400°C and generate steam to drive a steam-Rankine turbine. Twenty years later, the Trough is still the only mature technology for large-scale (greater than 100MW) solar power generation. Demand for power and renewable-friendly policies have created opportunities and encouraged the development of other solar technologies for large-scale applications. Large plants based on photovoltaic (PV), concentrated PV, Linear Fresnel Reflectors, Central Receivers (solar tower) and Dish Concentrators are proposed. However, Trough systems are used in most of the 50MW or larger solar plants built over the last few years, presently in construction, or planned for the next few years.
- Will Trough remain the dominant large-scale solar technology?
- Can any solar system ever reach cost parity with conventional power plants?
- Can solar energy be stored and transported so it could be used at times and places with little or no sunlight, and for powering motor vehicles?
- What would it take for solar to become a major player in the power industry?
These are some of the fundamental questions that must be answered and demonstrated in the near future. Ironically, the better solutions might be those that would take longer to mature. In this October seminar hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative, Professor Karni of the Weizmann Institute looked at several proposed methods, attempted to provide criteria for evaluating them and suggested some possible answers.
This talk was presented on October 6, 2009 as part of the MITEI Seminar Series.
About the speaker:
Professor Karni has 20 years of research and development experience with keen interest in the development of new methods for concentration, absorption, conversion, transmission and storage of concentrated solar energy, and implementing these methods in genuine solar power-conversion systems. Karni was Assistant Professor at the Mechanical Engineering Dept. of SUNY at Stony Brook, N.Y. from 1984 to 1989 and has been at the Weizmann Institute since 1989. He was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota in the summers of 1994 and 1996, and at Johns Hopkins University in the 1998-98 school year. In January 2002, Prof. Karni was promoted to head the Weizmann’s Energy Center and he also oversees the entire Institutes’ solar program. Prof. Karni’s main research interests center around the utilization of concentrated solar energy at high temperatures. His pioneering work includes the development of a novel concentrated sunlight absorber, a high-pressure receiver window, a new Volumetric solar receiver, a non-imaging secondary optics device, and a revolutionary concept for a non-isothermal high-temperature solar receiver. A common denominator among the aforementioned methods is the ability to operate at concentrations, temperatures, and pressure levels far above those previously obtained with solar-driven devices; these abilities match or exceed the requirements of state-of-the-art power generation, chemical processing, and propulsion systems. Present studies include several methods of solar-driven hydrogen production and a new concept for integrating solar and energy storage, which could significantly reduce the cost of solar power generation. Prof. Karni and his team have conducted several extensive comparative studies of solar and other renewable technologies over the past 10 years. Three industry-led commercialization programs based on Prof. Karni’s concepts are currently underway. Prof. Karni has published over 70 scientific articles, and holds 8 international patents.
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Post time: Sep-16-2017