A Bloody Big Solar Tower
When you think of the future of solar power, you normally envision flat panels out in some massive field, blinding the sheep for miles around, or even the small panel up on your roof. What you’re unlikely to imagine is a bloody great big tower in the middle of nowhere.
A not so new energy concept has been unveiled by EnviroMission Limited in South Melbourne, Australia, and it harkens back to an idea demonstrated more than 20 years ago. It is basically small amount of panels on the ground, centering around a massive tower. The collectors warm the air near the surface, and then channel it up the tower. Turbines placed at the bottom make electricity created by the updraft.
“It’s a combination chimney, windmill, greenhouse,” said Kim Forté of EnviroMission Limited, who have designed a kilometer-high tower, and now are hoping to build it somewhere in southwestern USA.
This is basically an improved and improvised version of a solar chimney, a century’s old technique for providing ventilation throughout a home, using an updraft to move air throughout a home. EnviroMission are hoping though, to build much larger structures, in both width and height. The width is obvious, as the more solar panels there are the more chance there is of generating the heat at ground level. But the taller the tower is, the more powerful the suction is going up the chimney.
EnviroMission are looking at building a tower that would reach 800 to 1000 meters in to the sky. It would be surrounded by a greenhouse canopy some 2.5 kilometers in radius. “It is a sizeable footprint [on the land], but with the rising cost of carbon fuels, it’s becoming more commercial,” Forté said.
The advantage of a solar tower over normal solar cells is definitely not efficiency, as a tower is only a tenth that efficient as cells. But on the other hand, a tower is much less expensive to build. A 200-megawatt tower such as described above would cost upwards of a billion dollars. But according to a 2005 industry report, this would imply a 10 cent per kilowatt-hour charge, which equals out to be roughly a third of the cost of electricity generated from solar cells.
Solar power is definitely one aspect of our power generation future. But whether we will look towards efficiency or cost is yet to be determined.
Photo Credit: EnviroMission Ltd.
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July 6th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Joshua Hill obviously doesn’t understand the technology, and he’s also obviously confused about “solar,” as well. Solar chimmneys such as this design, enable dispatchability over a 20 hour or so window,making this form of power generation not only cheaper than solar PV, but dispatchable -infinitelymore valuable. Unreliable, uncontrollable solar PV (and wind) is junk power – worth practically nothing. Solar thermal, however, would certainly be cost competitive with this design and be just as reliable and controllable. It also doesn’t require a skyscaper in the desert.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:52 am
kent, please yank your head from your sphincter. PV & wind are hardly “junk” power.
July 8th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
http://www.txspc.com
Given the value of the dollar is emerging to be NOTHING,
solar power is generally the BEST way to spend your excess cash flow. As an investment, one couldn’t spend money in a better way. If you plan on hanging around for a while, you might as well get it.
These solar chimneys are a neat idea.
http://www.txspc.com
July 9th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Excuse me if I demonstrate a lack of technical understanding, but it seems that this idea is missing an opportunity. If I remember correctly, standard solar PV power generation is only around 10-15% efficient. While some of this loss is reflected, a good proportion of the remaining 85-90% must be dissipated as heat. Could the two technologies not be easily combined so that the panels produce electricity AS WELL as heating air for the tower?
July 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Is this not essentially an incredibly expensive way to create wind? I can’t see this competing with a well-sited conventional wind turbine.
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:39 am
I think it’s safe to say that, in the desert, the sun virtually, always shines, but the wind doesn’t necessarily always blow. I agree, it is expensive. But in the long run it will provide a more consistant form of electricity.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:33 am
What a wast of land. 200 MW is a joke.
Imagine the roofs of 20000 houses, each covered with 10 kW peak cheap thin film photovoltaic.
Same energy, but much less cost. US$ 1 billion for 20km² covered land and an 1 km high tower, that’s unbelievable. Let’s split the billion in 2.
$26 per squaremeter covered including all the construction,
$500.000 per m height of a very big tower with several hundered meter dieameter.
While cheap thin film photovoltaic really comes soon down to 10 Cent per kWh in very sunny areas, no chance for this construction.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:40 am
Hmm…
Also, you could paint white elephants on the tower.
However, there is also an invention called the atmospheric vortex engine, which would produce a strong updraft, along similar principles, just without the tower (which is replaced by a funnel wind). It’s in fact a machine to make a hurricane. See http://vortexengine.ca/index.shtml.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Naturally, there could be a small problem when the hurricane escapes control…
December 14th, 2009 at 6:51 am
This application is good but specific to location, financing and demands to be met! Cheaper Solar schemes are welcome in my books, and as far as I can see, lower cost to get any power for free from the Sun is good! Betcha it would charge my batteries just fine, Let the Actuaries on the particular installation decide for the greatest particular advantages – alternatives all welcome! Narrow minds drive Cadillacs with V-8 engines, black, bigger and six inches longer, this years model of course! – Smart money rides the electric bullet trains, smiles and nods at the Cadillac folk and banks the difference for highest interest rate possible! Different strokes for different folks! I like this option but in a windy place, I put wind turbines and in the Bay of Fundy I put Tidal power, wouldn’t you?