Research Paper
Hasanlari
energyproject.docx
Introduction
Solar is the Latin word for sun—a powerful source of energy that can be used to heat, cool, and light our homes and businesses. That's because more energy from the sun falls on the earth in one hour than is used by everyone in the world in one year. A variety of technologies convert sunlight to usable energy for buildings. The most commonly used solar technologies for homes and businesses are solar water heating, Concentrating Solar Power , and solar photovoltaics for electricity. The world has been pushing towards forms of energy that are both clean to the environment and renewable. This has led to the recent advancements in the conversion of solar energy into usable energy. Our group looked into the many ways solar energy can be harvested and used for different tasks. The sun's energy can be converted into heat and electricity for use in our homes and businesses through methods we will delve into in this presentation. We will specifically go into solar water and space heating and conversion into electricity. There are many big companies like Tesla and IBM working on innovative forms of solar technology that are both more efficient and more affordable so that they can be used on a wider scale.
Solar water heaters use the sun's heat to provide hot water for a home or building.
How Solar Water Heaters Work
Solar water heating systems include storage tanks and solar collectors. Solar water heaters use the sun to heat either water or a heat-transfer fluid in the collector.
Most solar water heaters require a well-insulated storage tank. The tank can be a modified standard water heater, but it is usually larger and very well insulated. Solar storage tanks have an additional outlet and inlet connected to and from the collector. In two-tank systems, the solar water heater preheats water before it enters the conventional water heater. In one-tank systems, the back-up heater is combined with the solar storage in one tank.
Types of Solar Collectors
Solar collectors gather the sun's energy, transform its radiation into heat, and then transfer that heat to water or solar fluid. Three types of solar collectors are used in solar water heating systems:
Flat-plate collectors
A typical flat-plate collector is an insulated metal box with a glass or plastic cover (called the glazing) and a dark-colored absorber plate. Unglazed flat-plate collectors—typically used for solar pool heating—have a dark absorber plate, made of metal or polymer, without a cover or enclosure.
Integral collector-storage systems
Integral collector-storage systems, also known as ICS or "batch" systems, are made of one or more black tanks or tubes in an insulated glazed box. Cold water first passes through the solar collector, which preheats the water, and then continues to the conventional backup water heater.
Evacuated-tube solar collectors
Evacuated-tube collectors can achieve extremely high temperatures (170°F to 350°F), making them more appropriate for cooling applications and commercial and industrial application. The collectors are usually made of parallel rows of transparent glass tubes. Each tube contains a glass outer tube and metal absorber tube attached to a fin. The fin is covered with a coating that absorbs solar energy well, but which inhibits radiative heat loss. Air is removed, or evacuated, from the space between the two glass tubes to form a vacuum, which eliminates conductive and convective heat loss.
Types of Solar Water Heating Systems
There are two types of solar water heating systems: active, which have circulating pumps and controls, and passive, which don't.
Active Solar Water Heating Systems
There are two types of active solar water heating systems:
Direct circulation systems
Direct-circulation systems use pumps to circulate pressurized potable water directly through the collectors. These systems are appropriate in areas that do not freeze for long periods and do not have hard or acidic water.
Indirect circulation systems
Indirect-circulation systems pump heat-transfer fluids through collectors. Heat exchangers transfer the heat from the fluid to the potable water. They are popular in climates prone to freezing temperatures. Some indirect systems have "overheat protection," which is a means to protect the collector and the glycol fluid from becoming super-heated when the load is low and the intensity of incoming solar radiation is high. The two most common indirect systems are:
Passive solar water heaters rely on gravity and the tendency for water to naturally circulate as it is heated. There are two basic types of passive systems:
Integral collector-storage passive systems
Integral-collector storage systems consist of one or more storage tanks placed in an insulated box with a glazed side facing the sun. These work best in areas where temperatures rarely fall below freezing. They also work well in households with significant daytime and evening hot-water needs. They do not work well in homes or buildings with predominantly morning draws because they lose most of the collected energy overnight.
Thermosyphon systems
Thermosyphon systems rely on the natural convection of warm water rising to circulate water through the collectors and to the tank (located above the collector). As water in the solar collector heats, it becomes lighter and rises naturally into the tank above. Meanwhile, the cooler water flows down the pipes to the bottom of the collector, enhancing the circulation. Some manufacturers place the storage tank in the house's attic, concealing it from view. Indirect thermosyphons (that use a glycol fluid in the collector loop) can be installed in freeze-prone climates if the piping in the unconditioned space is adequately protected.
Concentrating Solar Power Basics
Many power plants today use fossil fuels as a heat source to boil water. The steam from the boiling water spins a large turbine, which drives a generator to produce electricity. However, a new generation of power plants with concentrating solar power systems uses the sun as a heat source. The three main types of concentrating solar power systems are: linear concentrator, dish/engine, and power tower systems.
Linear concentrator systems collect the sun's energy using long rectangular, curved (U-shaped) mirrors. The mirrors are tilted toward the sun, focusing sunlight on tubes (or receivers) that run the length of the mirrors. The reflected sunlight heats a fluid flowing through the tubes. The hot fluid then is used to boil water in a conventional steam-turbine generator to produce electricity. There are two major types of linear concentrator systems: parabolic trough systems, where receiver tubes are positioned along the focal line of each parabolic mirror; and linear Fresnel reflector systems, where one receiver tube is positioned above several mirrors to allow the mirrors greater mobility in tracking the sun.
A dish/engine system uses a mirrored dish similar to a very large satellite dish, although to minimize costs, the mirrored dish is usually composed of many smaller flat mirrors formed into a dish shape. The dish-shaped surface directs and concentrates sunlight onto a thermal receiver, which absorbs and collects the heat and transfers it to the engine generator. The most common type of heat engine used today in dish/engine systems is the Stirling engine. This system uses the fluid heated by the receiver to move pistons and create mechanical power. The mechanical power is then used to run a generator or alternator to produce electricity.
A power tower system uses a large field of flat, sun-tracking mirrors known as heliostats to focus and concentrate sunlight onto a receiver on the top of a tower. A heat-transfer fluid heated in the receiver is used to generate steam, which, in turn, is used in a conventional turbine generator to produce electricity. Some power towers use water/steam as the heat-transfer fluid. Other advanced designs are experimenting with molten nitrate salt because of its superior heat-transfer and energy-storage capabilities. The energy-storage capability, or thermal storage, allows the system to continue to dispatch electricity during cloudy weather or at night.
Solar Photovoltaic Technology Basics
Solar cells, also called photovoltaic (PV) cells by scientists, convert sunlight directly into electricity. PV gets its name from the process of converting light (photons) to electricity (voltage), which is called the PV effect. The PV effect was discovered in 1954, when scientists at Bell Telephone discovered that silicon (an element found in sand) created an electric charge when exposed to sunlight. Soon solar cells were being used to power space satellites and smaller items like calculators and watches.
· Traditional solar cells are made from silicon, are usually flat-plate, and generally are the most efficient. Second-generation solar cells are called thin-film solar cells because they are made from amorphous silicon or nonsilicon materials such as cadmium telluride. Thin film solar cells use layers of semiconductor materials only a few micrometers thick. Because of their flexibility, thin film solar cells can double as rooftop shingles and tiles, building facades, or the glazing for skylights.
Third-generation solar cells are being made from a variety of new materials besides silicon, including solar inks using conventional printing press technologies, solar dyes, and conductive plastics. Some new solar cells use plastic lenses or mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a very small piece of high efficiency PV material. The PV material is more expensive, but because so little is needed, these systems are becoming cost effective for use by utilities and industry. However, because the lenses must be pointed at the sun, the use of concentrating collectors is limited to the sunniest parts of the country.
· Solar Industry Growing at a Record Pace
· Solar energy in the United States is booming. Along with our partners at GTM Research and The Solar Foundation, SEIA tracks trends and trajectories in the solar industry that demonstrate the diverse and sustained growth across the country.
Below you will find charts and factoids that summarize the state of solar in the U.S. SEIA Members have access to presentation slide decks that contain this data and much more. Not a SEIA Member? Join today!
· Solar Growth and the ITC
The Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has provided industry stability and growth since its initial passage in 2006. In the last decade, solar has experienced an average annual growth rate of 68%. To learn more about the ITC and its impact on the solar industry, visit our
Solar as an Economic Engine
Nearly 260,000 Americans work in solar - more than double the number in 2012 - at more than 9,000 companies in every U.S. state.
Growth in Solar is led by Falling Prices
The cost to install solar has dropped by more than 70% since 2010, leading the industry to expand into new markets and deploy thousands of systems nationwide.
Solar's Share of New Capacity has Grown Rapidly
In 2016, Solar installed 39% of all new electric generating capacity, topping all other technologies for the first time. Solar’s increasing competitiveness against other technologies has allowed it to quickly increase its share of total U.S. electrical generation- from just 0.1% in 2010 to 1.4% today. By 2020 solar should surpass 3% of total generation is expected to hit 5% by 2022.
U.S. Solar Market Through Q1 2017: Key Takeaways
· 2,387 MW installed in Q1 2017
· Largest Q1 in history
· Up 8% from last quarter and 12% from last year
· Over 47 GW of total solar capacity now installed
· Average Annual Growth Rate of 68% over last 10 years
· Generates enough electricity to power 9.1 million homes
· Solar accounted for 22% of all new capacity installed in 1H 2017
· Second to only Natural Gas
· Builds upon strong 2016 in which Solar accounted for 39% of all new capacity, ranking 1st
· Solar prices dropped 19% over the last 12 months
· Prices have dropped 55% over last 5 years
· 27 states expected to be at grid parity for residential by end of 2017 (only 12 in 2014)
· Utility-scale PPAs now signed at $28 - $45 per MWh
· There are now more than 1.5 million solar installations in the U.S.
· After reaching 1 million in 2016, 2 million should be hit in 2018 and 4 million by 2022
Solar PV Price Breakdown
The biggest cost-decline opportunity in the solar industry exists in soft costs, including labor, supply chain and overhead considerations. The U.S. Department of Energy is leading the charge on reducing soft costs, and SEIA and The Solar Foundation are working with cities and counties to streamline permitting processes and reduce local barriers to going solar.
New Market Opportunities for Distributed Solar
After years of 50%+ annual growth, the residential market growth has slowed in a handful of mature markets as installers trial new sales techniques. But growth in emerging markets like Utah, Texas, South Carolina and Florida should help the national residential market grow in 2017. Meanwhile, the rapid rise of community solar has boosted the non-residential segment in 2016 and 2017, coupled with increasing numbers of both off-site and rooftop corporate procurement by such companies as Walmart, Apple, Target and Amazon.
U.S. Solar PV Growth Forecast
While 2017 installations are expected drop slightly from a record-shattering 2016, the 12.4 GW expected is two thirds larger than 2015, the second largest year on record. After rapidly completing a record buildout in 2016 and 2017, developers will be looking to procure new projects with completion targets moving into the next decade. By 2021 there will be over 100 GW of solar installed in the U.S., with annual totals exceeding 16 GW in 2022.
Solar Boom: 5 Leading Reasons for the Industry’s Growth
Would you believe that there are now more people working in the solar industry than at oil rigs and gas fields? With a 20 percent increase in size, the solar industry added more than 35,000 jobs — making about 209,000 solar energy employees working in the U.S. alone. From solar panel installers and designers, to engineers and sales personnel, the solar industry significantly outsizes oil and gas construction and is nearly three times the size of the total coal mining workforce.
The solar industry’s steady five-year growth period has many experts looking for what factors might be contributing most to this notable increase. And while things such as improved awareness in environmental sustainability have certainly played a role in the industry’s boom, the following five factors are largely credited for solar power’s recent growth.
1. Tax Credits
As a means of supporting the development of solar energy in the U.S., the federal government has implemented a solar investment tax credit (ITC) for anyone who develops or invests in solar energy. When the residential and commercial solar ITC was implemented in 2006, the initiative was to only be utilized for a few years. However, in December 2015, Congress voted to extend the ITC through 2023.
With a compound annual growth rate of 76 percent, the ITC has helped annual solar installation grow by over 1,600 percent in the last decade. Thanks to the extension of the ITC, solar prices are expected to continue to fall, resulting in climbing installation rates and technological efficiencies. In fact, solar installation is estimated to quadruple by 2020, and the solar workforce is expected to double in the same time period. Overall, the ITC is one of the greatest contributors of solar energy’s growing success. As a stable, long-term federal tax incentive, the ITC can spur economic growth while simultaneously reducing prices and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs the U.S.
2. Climate Change Agreement in Paris
The climate change agreement in Paris, along with the global action plan to reduce harmful global warming, has been a significant contributing factor to the solar industry’s boom. The draft, which was established in early December 2015, was agreed upon by negotiators from 195 countries and is aimed at reducing carbon emissions worldwide and limiting global warming.
The agreement addresses issues such as deforestation, food security, poverty, and more. It also includes guidelines for what developed countries can to do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, like helping developing countries with long-term, scaled-up technology and capability building. As a result of this agreement, the federal government has been even more encouraging for residential and commercial buildings to use solar energy.
3. Low-cost Equipment
The cost of solar energy equipment is at an all-time low. With prices down nearly 70 percent since 2010, the declining cost is perhaps the leading reason for the solar industry’s growth. In general, the average house consumes electricity at a rate of 1 kW per hour. With roughly 730 hours in each month and the average price of a kWh of electricity costing $0.10, the average monthly bill is around $73.
The installation cost of solar panels has dropped significantly. Prices that used to cost between $7 and $9 per watt have decreased to around $3 per watt, which computes to roughly $25,000 to $35,000 for the average system. While the initial installation costs may seem high on paper, many utility companies offer incentives and some even subsidize as much as 50 percent of system costs. There are generally four equipment components in every system:
· Solar panels
· Controller
· Batteries
· Inverter
Thanks to recent technological developments, these elements can now be developed in a more affordable, efficient way. These declining costs have also been another incentive for business and homeowners to switch to solar power.
4. Marketing and Cultural Demand
Simply put, solar energy has grown as a result of rising popularity. Companies, for example, are embracing their solar panels and displaying them on their buildings and campuses to advertise their interest, investment, and dedication to renewable energy. In many cases, people see solar as a status symbol and it attracts people to the company. As many business owners see the importance of reducing their carbon footprint, solar is the best, most affordable option available right now.
5. Battery Storage
Lastly, battery storage has made huge strides in efficiency and type. Instead of the old gigantic lead-plate batteries that are loaded with sulphuric acid, expensive to make, and harmful to the environment, modern batteries essentially use saltwater as the only electrolyte. They are also made of lithium iron, which eliminates the risk of thermal issues and fire hazards. Other things like flywheels, pumped storage hydro, and miniature combined heat-and-power units can also do the same job of batteries.
Despite the fact that cheap oil and gas prices are making it difficult to convince some consumers to switch to solar, solar energy and other renewable resources are here to stay and will continue to grow in both relevance and popularity for years to come.
The Future of Solar Energy
At first blush, solar energy is perhaps the most elegant solution to our energy needs. The sun blasts our planet’s surface with more than enough energy to keep us going forever.
The United States government estimates that the Earth receives over 173,000 terawatts of energy every year, which is more than 10,000 times what humanity needs. The challenge has always been collecting that energy. Even though most people are aware of photovoltaic cells, solar panels have been expensive enough to keep them firmly in the luxury bracket. For years the low efficiency of solar panels and the high costs per square inch of these panels made solar power economically unviable.
That has now changed. In the five years between 2008 and 2013, the cost of solar panels fell by over 50 percent. Between 2015 and 2017, experts estimate the cost will fall another 40 percent. Researchers in the United Kingdom say they are surprised by how quick solar adoption is growing. They estimate that the costs will fall fast enough to allow solar to contribute 20% of our energy consumption by 2027. That benchmark would have been unimaginable a few years back.
It seems the technology has caught up in terms of costs and efficiency. It’s now at the brink of mass adoption. But where can the technology go from here? What’s in store for the future of solar energy?
New Business
Every new technology brings new opportunities for business. Tesla and Panasonic are already planning a humongous solar panel manufacturing factory in Buffalo, New York. Tesla’s Powerwall is already one of the most popular domestic energy storage devices in the world. The big players aren’t the only ones benefitting from the solar energy boom.
There is likely to a be a lot of demand for real estate. Landowners and farmers can lease out their land for the construction of new solar farms. Demand for medium voltage cable could rise since solar farms will need to be freshly connected to the grid. All the new opportunities will drive prices lower and drive the tech further.
Bio-solar cells
Researchers have experimented with biological material in solar cells for a while now. Bacteria (specifically cyanobacteria) can eventually make it easier to power wireless devices. The efficiency of these bio-solar cells is nowhere close to conventional PV cells, but there is hope the technology will gradually catch up. One of the researchers at the Binghamton University’s Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, Seokheun ‘Sean’ Choi, believes bio-cells would be useful for remote areas where replacing batteries frequently isn’t an option.
Better Conversion to Electricity
Researchers from Israel and Germany partnered up to study if there was a better way to convert sunlight into electricity. Turns out that the most efficient way is also the most common – photosynthesis. The study confirmed that using biomass as fuel could eventually allow us to create artificial photosynthesis machines. These could convert sunlight into energy and store in a more natural way for later use.
Floating Panels
Some countries lack the space for solar farms. An elegant solution to this problem is floating solar farms. Ciel & Terre International, a French energy company, has been working on a large scale, floating, solar solution since 2011. They have already installed a trial farm off the coast of the UK and are now looking at attempting similar projects in India, France, and Japan.
Wireless Power From Space
The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) believes getting closer to the sun is the best way to drive efficiency and collect more power. The team’s Space Solar Power Systems (SSPS) project is trying to send solar panels to near-Earth orbit. The power collected will be wirelessly transmitted back to base station via microwaves. If successful, this technology could be a true game changer.
Better Efficiency
Efficiency is, at the moment, the biggest hurdle to better solar power. At this moment, more than 80% of all solar panels have an energy efficiency of less than 15 percent. Most of these solar panels are stationary, which means they miss out on direct sunlight. A majority of the sunlight that hits the panels is wasted. Better design, better chemistry and the use of sunlight-absorbing nanoparticles could drive efficiency.
Some researchers believe they have found a way to capture the infrared spectrum of light for use in solar panels. Right now, infrared rays pass right through the panels and are wasted. But if this spectrum of invisible light can be captured, it could boost energy efficiency by 30 percent.
Meanwhile, IBM is trying to make individual PV cells smaller so that more of them could be squeezed into tighter spaces. The company believes it could eventually pack ten times more PV cells into the same space.
Solar energy is clearly the future. Till date, humanity has only scratched the surface of the sun’s true potential. The sun deploys more energy to the planet’s surface than what’s used every year. While the costs have reduced drastically over the years, the technology has remained the same. Researchers across the globe are working tirelessly to improve the way sunrays are collected and converted into energy.
The relentless drive of technology will eventually help solar energy contribute a major part in the annual energy needs. Better and more efficient devices will be powered by the sun and have the ability to store this energy for longer periods. The coming energy boom is set to change lives forever.
Conclusion
Many power plants today use fossil fuels as a heat source to boil water. The steam from the boiling water spins a large turbine, which drives a generator to produce electricity. However, a new generation of power plants with concentrating solar power systems uses the sun as a heat source. The three main types of concentrating solar power systems are: linear concentrator, dish/engine, and power tower systems. Linear concentrator systems collect the sun's energy using long rectangular, curved (U-shaped) mirrors. The mirrors are tilted toward the sun, focusing sunlight on tubes (or receivers) that run the length of the mirrors. The reflected sunlight heats a fluid flowing through the tubes. The hot fluid then is used to boil water in a conventional steam-turbine generator to produce electricity. There are two major types of linear concentrator systems: parabolic trough systems, where receiver tubes are positioned along the focal line of each parabolic mirror; and linear Fresnel reflector systems, where one receiver tube is positioned above several mirrors to allow the mirrors greater mobility in tracking the sun. A dish/engine system uses a mirrored dish similar to a very large satellite dish, although to minimize costs, the mirrored dish is usually composed of many smaller flat mirrors formed into a dish shape. A power tower system uses a large field of flat, sun-tracking mirrors known as heliostats to focus and concentrate sunlight onto a receiver on the top of a tower. Solar cells, also called photovoltaic (PV) cells by scientists, convert sunlight directly into electricity. PV gets its name from the process of converting light (photons) to electricity (voltage), which is called the PV effect. The PV effect was discovered in 1954, when scientists at Bell Telephone discovered that silicon (an element found in sand) created an electric charge when exposed to sunlight. Soon solar cells were being used to power space satellites and smaller items like calculators and watches.
Cite
https://www.nrel.gov/workingwithus/re-solar.html
https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/future-solar-energy.php
https://www.svssolutions.com/blog/three-environmental-benefits-solar-energy
https://www.seia.org/solar-industry-data
https://www.nap.edu/read/12619/chapter/5#87
