Concentrating Solar Power

Concentrated Solar power systems use lenses or mirrors to focus a large area of Sunlight onto a small area. Electrical power is produced when the concentrated light is directed onto Photovoltaic surfaces or used to Heat a transfer fluid for a conventional Power plant.

Concentrated Sunlight has been used to perform useful tasks from the time of Ancient China. A legend has it that Archimedes used a "burning glass" to concentrate sunlight on the invading Roman fleet and repel them from Syracuse. In 1973 a Greek scientist, Dr. Ioannis Sakkas, curious about whether Archimedes could really have destroyed the Roman fleet in 212 BC lined up nearly 60 Greek sailors, each holding an oblong Mirror tipped to catch the Sun's rays and direct them at a tar-covered plywood silhouette feet away. The ship caught fire after a few minutes; however, historians continue to doubt the Archimedes story.

In 1866, Auguste Mouchout used a Parabolic trough to produce Steam for the first solar steam engine. The first patent for a Solar collector was obtained by the Italian Alessandro Battaglia in Genoa, Italy, in 1886. Over the following years, inventors such as John Ericsson and Frank Shuman developed concentrating solar-powered devices for Irrigation, refrigeration, and locomotion. In 1913 Shuman finished a 55HP parabolic Solar thermal energy station in Meadi, Egypt for Irrigation. Another Genoese, Professor Giovanni Francia , designed and built the first solar concentrated plant which entered in operation in Sant'Ilario, near Genoa, Italy in 1968. This plant had the architecture of today's solar concentrated plants with a solar receiver in the center of a field of solar collectors. The plant was able to produce 1MW with superheated steam at 100 bar and 500 degrees celsius. The 10MW Solar One power tower was developed in Southern California in 1981 but the parabolic trough technology of the nearby Solar energy Generating Systems , begun in 1984, was more workable. The 354MW SEGS is still the largest Solar power plant in the world.

1. NREL Concentrating Solar Power Research Home Page - NREL collaborates with industry to further the research and development of concentrating solar power CSP plant and solar thermal technologies.
2. NREL Learning - Concentrating Solar Power - Concentrating Solar Power. 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
3. concentrating solar power - concentrating solar power Renewable Energy Technologies Cogeneration Technologies
4. Concentrating Solar Power - www.ConcentratingSolarPower.com. Owners Developers of the Highest Efficiency Lowest Cost Utility-scale Solar Power Parks, Featuring our

1. 2010-08-26T16:30:31Z : Concentrating Photovoltaics CPV New Applications And Emerging Markets - Concentrating Photovoltaics CPV continues to generate interest and investment worldwide as a unique solution for large-scale commercial and utility-scale solar power generation. This report, building on research ... (TMCnet)
2. 2010-08-26T13:45:52Z : Research and Markets Concentrating Photovoltaics CPV New Applications - Concentrating Photovoltaics CPV continues to generate interest and investment worldwide as a unique solution for large-scale commercial and utility-scale solar power generation. This report, building on research ... (PR Inside)
3. 2010-08-24T04:01:16Z : LadyBug Shareholders to Get Stake in New Solar Spin-off - PR Inside - New Solar is developing a technology to use concentrating solar power to capture energy from the sun and transfer it in the form of heat to run steam turbine generators. Dr. Craig Barton, COO of LadyBug, said, ... (PR Inside)
4. 2010-08-25T23:55:31Z : MIT opens new window on solar energy - MIT News - By collecting light over their full surface and concentrating it at their edges, these devices reduce the required area of solar cells and consequently, the cost of solar power. Stacking multiple concentrators allows ... (MIT News)