Prospects and analysis of the development of solar power plants in deserts using superconducting lines to improve the efficiency of power supply. Energy of sun. Development of solar energy Kingdom of crooked mirrors

Published by ssu-filippov on November 29, 2010 - 00:44

Solar power plants that produce other solar power plants that... This expansive process, if allowed to roam somewhere, for example in the desert, will provide humanity with a breakthrough energy. Such an unusual plan to save the planet from lack of energy and ecological collapse was invented in Japan.

The fields of solar panels could give the world an enormous amount of electricity. The question is how to make such facilities economically viable. The exotic Sahara Solar Breeder Project is trying to answer it.

Instead of driving thousands of tons of solar panels across the seas, it is proposed to produce such batteries on site, on the edge of the desert. Raw materials will be taken literally underfoot. After all, sand is the richest source of silica.

Silicon for solar cells could be extracted from it. They should be released here. After the power of one such field reaches a certain value, somewhere nearby you can build a second plant for processing sand and producing solar panels. After all, this process itself requires a lot of energy: it will be given by the first batteries.

The second plant, having produced enough solar cells, will make it possible to put a third sand processing plant at a distance ... So solar power plants will begin to "multiply" exponentially. Moreover, a small share of the total capacity of solar power plants will go to the work of the plants.

Rice. 1. The basic principle of the "solar breeder" is simple: solar panels, due to the generated energy, should provide the basis for their further expansion (illustration diginfo.tv).

The resulting energy will have to be transported to large consumers - to Europe, and maybe even further. Here, the Japanese believe, one cannot do without cables made of high-temperature superconductors. They should be cooled with liquid nitrogen, and they will pass underground to minimize ground temperature drops.

The project leader, Professor Hideomi Koinuma of the University of Tokyo, first presented his plan in 2009. Then it was only a dream. But now the first modest steps have been taken towards its implementation.

The case moved forward through the efforts of two Japanese agencies - for science and technology (JST) and for international cooperation (JICA). Under their auspices, specialists from six Japanese universities and institutes, as well as the Algerian Scientific and Technological University of Oran (USTO), intend to unite efforts.

The Sahara Solar Energy Research Center (SSSERC) project in Africa was selected by JST in spring 2010 for further progress. SSERC is designed for five years, and its goal is to develop and test the technologies necessary for Solar Breeder to become a reality.

Rice. 2. Plan of the Japanese in general terms. Local energy and materials will not only allow the production of more solar panels, but also the desalination of water needed to reclaim territory from the desert (illustration diginfo.tv).

In addition, in 2011, scientists intend to build in the Sahara one "own" solar installation with a capacity of only 100 kilowatts. It will play the role of a foundation stone and a testing ground. Experts intend to find out how this battery will be affected by work in harsh conditions, how it will be affected by sandstorms.

With superconducting cables, too, everything is still not clear. The necessary technology, and the industrial one, already exists. But we need to find out how best to lay such cables in the desert, and even over such huge distances, what will be the cost of operating cooling equipment ...

In general, we have only a research project before us. No one can yet say whether the “self-reproduction” of power plants in the Sahara will ever start. But if the plan works, by 2050 that very first 100-kilowatt battery will "multiply" to 100 gigawatt fields. This is a solid value - about 3% of the installed capacity of power plants around the world. And what will happen next, you can only fantasize.

Rice. 3. The world's largest solar power plant based on photovoltaic panels at the moment - Finsterwalde Solar Park in Germany. The first stage of this solar park was built in 2009, and the second and third - in 2010. The peak power of the "park" is 80.7 megawatts (photo from greenunivers.com).

In terms of the degree of impact on humanity, Koinuma compares "seeding the Sahara" with solar panels with landing astronauts on the moon, therefore he gave his project another name - Super Apollo. The first word is not just a superlative, but also a hint at the use of superconductors, and the second is a reference to the famous American space program and the name of the sun god.

Of course, there are still many blank spots in Hideomi's idea. The economics of the cycle have yet to be assessed in detail. And here the craftsmen from the Land of the Rising Sun have someone to focus on. A similar idea is cherished by the Desertec Foundation and a conglomerate of German companies. They are going to build a complex of solar power plants in the Sahara for the same 100 gigawatts by 2020-2025.

The Germans' plan is much more mundane: there is no exponential "multiplication" of solar panels factories, there are no batteries themselves either, and instead of them it is supposed to use thermal power plants with concentrator mirrors. And the power transmission lines for the transfer of energy to Europe are planned to be classical.

Nevertheless, the cost of the Desertec Foundation project is estimated at hundreds of billions of euros. It will be interesting to see if the Japanese and Algerians will be able to cut costs with their strategy of "breeding" power plants.

The SSERC project has another important purpose. Koinuma hopes that Algeria's "solar" center will play the role of a catalyst for the development of local science and industry. As part of the project, the Japanese are going to share their knowledge and technology with the younger generation of African scientists and engineers, who, if everything goes according to plan, will turn the Japanese fairy tale about the desert network of solar power stations into reality.

The fields of solar panels could give the world an enormous amount of electricity. The question is how to make such facilities economically viable. The exotic “Sahara Solar Breeder Project” is trying to give its answer to it.

Instead of driving thousands of tons of solar panels across the seas, it is proposed to produce such batteries locally, on the edge of the desert. Raw materials will be taken literally underfoot. After all, sand is the richest source of silica.

The second plant, having produced enough solar cells, will make it possible to install a third sand processing plant at a distance ... So solar power plants will begin to "multiply" exponentially. Moreover, a small share of the total capacity of solar power plants will go to the work of the plants.

The basic principle of the "solar breeder" is simple: solar batteries should provide the basis for their further expansion due to the generated energy (illustration diginfo.tv).

The plan of the Japanese in general terms. Local energy and materials will not only allow the production of more solar panels, but also the desalination of water needed to reclaim territory from the desert (illustration diginfo.tv).

First of all, we are talking about extracting silicon from sand, and with a high enough purity of the product so that it can be used to create solar panels. There is no such technology yet. But the plan's planners hope to build a sand-refining pilot plant capable of producing a tonne of pure silicon a year.

With superconducting cables, too, everything is still not clear. The necessary technology, and the industrial one, already exists. But we need to find out how best to lay such cables in the desert, and even over such vast distances, what will be the cost of operating cooling equipment ...

The world's largest solar power plant based on photovoltaic panels at the moment is the Finsterwalde Solar Park in Germany. The first stage of this solar park was built in 2009, and the second and third - in 2010. The peak power of the "park" is 80.7 megawatts (photo from greenunivers.com).

In terms of the degree of impact on humanity, Koinuma compares “seeding the Sahara” with solar panels with landing astronauts on the moon, therefore he gave his project another name - Super Apollo. The first word is not just a superlative, but also a hint at the use of superconductors, and the second is a reference to the famous American space program and the name of the sun god.

Photo: wikipedia

The energy source of solar radiation is a thermonuclear reaction on the Sun. Solar energy is emitted in the form of electromagnetic radiation.
To use its energy, it is necessary to solve such issues as: to catch its greatest flow, to store and transfer heat and electricity derived from it without loss.

Resources solar energy is virtually unlimited. So, according to some calculations, the amount of it that reached the surface of the Earth within a minute is more than the energy available from all other sources during the year.

Using the energy of the sun, the solar system allows saving up to 75% of the required traditional fuel per year.

The advantages of using solar energy are environmental friendliness (no CO2 emissions) and the inexhaustibility of raw materials on the one hand and a long "shelf life". The solar battery has no moving and rubbing parts, and can work without replacing the working elements without losing efficiency for 20-25 years.

disadvantages The use of solar energy are natural fluctuations in solar activity - a change in the length of daylight hours during the year.
Negative impacts of power plants:

the use of large areas, which is associated with the possible degradation of land and changes in the microclimate in the area of the station.
use of "chlorine" technologies to obtain "solar" silicon. However, in the world and in Russia, chlorine-free environmentally friendly technologies are at the stage of pilot production. Their widespread introduction will certainly ensure the environmental friendliness of photovoltaic stations and installations.

Directions for the development of solar energy

At present, the development of solar energy (Greek Helios - sun) systems are carried out in two directions:

Creation of energy concentrators;
Improvement of solar batteries.

Work on the first direction includes the creation of systems that work on the principle of energy concentration. In this case, solar energy is focused by means of a lens on a relatively small photovoltaic cell.

For example, photovoltaic systems with a Fresnel lens, developed by the Japanese company Sharp. Or silicone complex semiconductors (California Institute of Technology - Caltech), developed on the principle of concentrating sunlight by marine organisms, in particular, the sea sponge "Venus's flower basket".

Principle The operation of a solar battery (energy generator) is a direct conversion of the electromagnetic radiation of the sun into electricity or heat. This process is called the photoelectric effect (PE). This generates a direct current.

At the moment, there are the following types of solar panels:

1. Photoelectric converters (PVC). These are semiconductor devices that directly convert solar energy into electricity. A certain number of interconnected solar cells are called a solar battery.

2. Solar power plants (HEES). These are solar installations that use highly concentrated solar radiation as energy to drive thermal and other machines (steam, gas turbine, thermoelectric, etc.)

3.Solar collectors (SC). These are heating low-temperature installations used for autonomous hot water supply of residential and industrial facilities.

Solar photovoltaic installations can be of the following main types:
Autonomous, working without a network connection, i.e. solar modules generate electricity for lighting, TV, radio, pump, refrigerator or hand tools. Batteries are used to store energy.

Connected to the network - in this case, the object is connected to the centralized power supply network. Excess electricity is sold to the company that owns the distribution networks at an agreed rate.

Standby systems where photovoltaic systems are connected to low quality grids. And in the event of a power outage or insufficient quality of the mains voltage, the load is partially or completely covered by the solar system.
The main complex problem hindering the successful general introduction of batteries into production is their low efficiency. That is, an inefficient combination of cost, size and product efficiency (COP). Existing solar panels (photocells) operate with a maximum efficiency of 30-35%. There is an active search for the possibility of doubling the capacity of solar photovoltaic installations. Although the cost of solar energy remains too high for industry so far: a kilowatt-hour of solar energy costs 20-25 cents, while the price of electricity produced by a coal-fired CHP plant is 4-6 cents, natural gas is 5-7 cents, on biofuel - 6-9 cents.

Development trends
To date, the most well-known companies producing solar panels are Siemens, Sharp, Kyocera, Solarex, BP Solar, Shell and others.

According to the journal In the World of Science (No. 1-2007), “over the past 10 years, the annual production of photovoltaic energy has increased by 25%, and in 2005 alone, by 45%. In Japan, in absolute terms, it reached 833 MW, in Germany - 353 MW, in the USA - 153 MW.

According to Solarhome.Ru, the total area of solar collectors installed in our time in the world already exceeds 50 million m 2, which is equivalent to the replacement of fossil fuel generation in the amount of approximately 5-7 million tons of equivalent fuel per year.

The need to rely on reliable, clean energy at affordable prices provokes active search and development of new technologies.

Over the past decade, solar panels have become more affordable due to improvements in their manufacturing technology. So, in Japan, such equipment becomes cheaper by 8% annually, in California - by 5% ....

Prospects for the development and use of solar systems in Russia
The southern regions and regions with a continental and sharply continental climate in Russia are the most favorable for the use of solar collectors as the main source of heating in winter.

In the conditions of central Russia, solar systems will provide significant savings in the use of classic types of fuel, significantly complementing the balance of energy consumption (experience in the implementation of solar water heaters in Kaliningrad).
At present, mass production and implementation of solar systems is not carried out in Russia.

Although the recent trend in the development of heat supply, aimed at the decentralization of large sources of heat supply - the use of local energy saving technologies, may be an incentive for the development of renewable energy sources, including solar energy.
Today in Russia, solar plants are produced by the Ryazan plant of ceramic-metal devices; Kovrov plant; ZAO "South Russian Energy Company"; JSC "Competitor", Zhukovsky, Moscow Region Separate batches of collectors are manufactured by NPO Mashinostroeniya, Reutov, Moscow Region. and etc.

Prepared by Olga Plekhanova

Rice. 1. The basic principle of the "solar breeder" is simple: solar panels, due to the generated energy, should provide the basis for their further expansion (illustration diginfo.tv).

Solar energy is getting energy from the sun. There are several technologies

solar energy. Getting electricity from the rays of the sun does not

harmful emissions into the atmosphere, the production of standard silicone batteries

also does little damage. But the production on a large scale of multilayer

elements using exotic materials such as gallium arsenide

or cadmium sulfide, accompanied by harmful emissions.

Solar panels have a number of advantages: they can be placed on rooftops

houses, along highways, easily transformed, used in

remote areas.

The main reason holding back the use of solar panels is their

high price. The current cost of solar electricity is 4.5

USD for 1 W of power and, as a result, the price of 1 kWh of electricity is 6 times

more expensive than energy obtained by traditional combustion of fuel. maybe

use of solar energy for home heating.

However, in the conditions of our country, 80% of the solar energy falls on the summer

a period when there is no need to heat housing, in addition, sunny days

in a year is not enough for the use of solar panels to become economically

appropriate.

houses. They are more economical than traditional coal-fired boilers.

A pilot production of hot water supply systems based on

using solar energy. These devices include solar

collectors and heat accumulators. Optimal for the local climate

system with four collectors - allows you to meet the needs for hot

water supply for a family of 4-5 people. In winter, the unit can be integrated with

standard heating system. The cost of the equipment varies

900-3500 USD USA.

Interesting examples of the use of solar energy in different countries.

In the UK, rural residents cover the need for

thermal energy by 40-50% due to the use of solar energy.

Modern solar collectors can meet the needs of agriculture

in warm water in the summer by 90%, and in the transition period - by 55-65%, in

winter - 30%.

The most efficient solar installations in the EU countries are operated in

Greece, Portugal, Spain, France: solar power generation

is respectively 870,000, 290,000, 255,200, 174,000 MWh per year.

In general, the European Union generates 1,850,000 MWh per year (according to

1998 data).

The most total area of installed solar collectors is located in:

USA - 10 million sq.m., Japan - 8 million sq.m., Israel - 1.7 million sq.m., Australia -

1.2 million sq.m.

Currently, 1 sq.m of solar collector saves per year:

electricity - 1070-1426 kWh;

reference fuel - 0.14-0.19 tons;

natural gas - 110-145 ncub.m;

coal - 0.18-0.24 tons;

wood fuel - 0.95-1.26 tons.

The area of solar collectors is 2-6 million cubic meters, which ensures the production of 3.2 - 8.6

billion kWh of energy and saves 0.42 - 1.14 million tons of conventional units. fuel per year.

Renewable energy sources are sources based on constantly existing or periodically occurring energy flows in the environment. Renewable energy is not the result of purposeful human activity, and this is its hallmark. The energy source of solar radiation is a thermonuclear reaction on the Sun. Solar energy is emitted in the form of electromagnetic radiation. To use its energy, it is necessary to solve such issues as: to catch its greatest flow, to store and transfer heat and electricity derived from it without loss. Resources solar energy is virtually unlimited. So, according to some calculations, the amount of it reaching the Earth's surface in a minute is greater than the energy available from all other sources in a year.

Using the energy of the sun, the solar system allows saving up to 75% of the required traditional fuel per year.

The advantages of using solar energy are environmental friendliness (no CO2 emissions) and the inexhaustibility of raw materials on the one hand and a long “shelf life”. The solar battery has no moving and rubbing parts, and can work without replacing the working elements without losing efficiency for 20-25 years. disadvantages The use of solar energy are natural fluctuations in solar activity - the change in the length of daylight hours during the year. Negative impacts of power plants:

the use of large areas, which is associated with the possible degradation of land and changes in the microclimate in the area of the station.

use of "chlorine" technologies to obtain "solar" silicon. However, in the world and in Russia, chlorine-free environmentally friendly technologies are at the stage of pilot production. Their widespread introduction will certainly ensure the environmental friendliness of photovoltaic stations and installations.

Directions for the development of solar energy At present, the development of solar energy (Greek Helios - sun) systems are carried out in two directions:

Creation of energy concentrators;

Improvement of solar batteries.

For example, photovoltaic systems with a Fresnel lens, developed by the Japanese company Sharp. Or silicon complex semiconductors (California Institute of Technology - Caltech), developed on the principle of concentrating sunlight by marine organisms in particular sea sponge "Venus" s flower basket ".

Principle The operation of a solar battery (energy generator) is the direct conversion of the electromagnetic radiation of the sun into electricity or heat. This process is called the photoelectric effect (PE). This generates a direct current. At the moment, there are the following types of solar panels: 1. Photoelectric converters (PVC). These are semiconductor devices that directly convert solar energy into electricity. A certain number of interconnected solar cells are called a solar battery.

2. Solar power plants (HEES). These are solar installations that use highly concentrated solar radiation as energy to drive thermal and other machines (steam, gas turbine, thermoelectric, etc.)

3.Solar collectors (SC). These are heating low-temperature installations used for autonomous hot water supply of residential and industrial facilities. Solar photovoltaic installations can be of the following main types: solar modules generate electricity for lighting, TV, radio, pump, refrigerator or hand tools. Batteries are used to store energy.

Standby systems where photovoltaic systems are connected to low quality grids. And in the event of a power outage or insufficient quality of the mains voltage, the load is partially or completely covered by the solar system. The main complex problem hindering the successful general introduction of batteries into production is their low efficiency. That is, an inefficient combination of cost, size and product efficiency (COP). Existing solar panels (photocells) operate with a maximum efficiency of 30-35%. There is an active search for the possibility of doubling the capacity of solar photovoltaic installations. Although the cost of solar energy remains too high for industry so far: a kilowatt-hour of solar energy costs 20-25 cents, while the price of electricity produced by coal-fired CHP is 4-6 cents, natural gas is 5-7 cents, on biofuel - 6–9 cents.

Development trends To date, the most well-known companies producing solar panels are Siemens, Sharp, Kyocera, Solarex, BP Solar, Shell and others.

According to Solarhome, the total area of solar collectors installed in our time in the world already exceeds 50 million m 2, which is equivalent to the replacement of fossil fuel generation in the amount of approximately 5-7 million tons of reference fuel per year.

The need to rely on reliable, clean energy at affordable prices provokes active search and development of new technologies.

Over the past decade, solar panels have become more affordable due to improvements in their manufacturing technology. So, in Japan, similar equipment cheaper every year by 8%, in California - by 5%.... Prospects for the development and use of solar systems in Russia The southern regions and regions with a continental and sharply continental climate in Russia are the most favorable for the use of solar collectors as the main source of heating in winter.

In the conditions of central Russia, solar systems will provide significant savings in the use of classic types of fuel, significantly complementing the balance of energy consumption (experience in the implementation of solar water heaters in Kaliningrad). At present, mass production and implementation of solar systems is not carried out in Russia.

Although the recent trend in the development of heat supply, aimed at the decentralization of large sources of heat supply - the use of local energy saving technologies, may be an incentive for the development of renewable energy sources, including solar energy. Today in Russia, solar plants are produced by the Ryazan plant of ceramic-metal devices; Kovrov plant; ZAO "South Russian Energy Company"; JSC "Competitor", Zhukovsky, Moscow Region Separate batches of collectors are manufactured by NPO Mashinostroeniya, Reutov, Moscow Region. etc. More details: http://www.bellona.ru/Factsheet/sunenergy

Prospects and analysis of the development of solar power plants in deserts using superconducting lines to improve the efficiency of power supply. Energy of sun. Development of solar energy Kingdom of crooked mirrors

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