11-03-2020

EV20001: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Lecture #7

Renewable Energy – I
(Introduction to Renewable Energy Sources, Concentrating Solar Power,
Solar Photovoltaics, Solar Thermal Energy, Solar Fuels)

Dr. Shamik Chowdhury

School of Environmental Science and Engineering
E-mail: [email protected]

11 March 2020

Renewable energy
 Renewable energy (RE) is any form of energy that is replenished by natural processes
at a rate that equals or exceeds its rate of use.

 RE is obtained from the continuing or repetitive flows of energy occurring in the natural
environment and includes resources such as biomass, solar radiation, geothermal heat,
hydropower, tides and waves, and wind.

 Unlike fossil fuels, RE sources do not directly emit CO2 when producing electricity. In
order to cut global CO2 emissions by at least 80% by 2050 and slow the projected climate
change, the world will need to transition to RE.

 Most RE technologies produce lower conventional air and water pollutants than fossil
fuels, thereby greatly reducing the pollution of air, land and water.

 RE can also result in a more decentralized and efficient energy economy that would be
less vulnerable to supply cutoffs from terrorist attacks and natural disasters, improve
economic and national security for many countries by reducing their dependence on
imported crude oil and natural gas, create large numbers of jobs and save consumers
money.

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Key drivers of renewable energy

Types of renewable energy resources

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 The various forms of renewable energy depend primarily on incoming

solar radiation, which totals some 5.4 million exajoule per year (EJ y ‒1).

 Various RE resources are already being successfully integrated

into energy supply systems and into end-use sectors.

Pathways for RE integration to provide energy services, either into energy supply
systems or on-site for use by the end-use sectors.

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 Deployment of RE has been increasing rapidly in recent years. On a global

basis, it is estimated that RE accounted for 13.8% of the total primary
energy supply in 2013. The largest RE contributor was biomass (10.2%),
with the majority (roughly 60%) of the biomass fuel used in traditional
cooking and heating applications in developing countries but with rapidly
increasing use of modern biomass as well. Hydropower represented 2.4%,
whereas other RE sources accounted for 1.2%.

Shares of energy sources in total global total primary energy supply in 2013

Solar Energy

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Direct solar energy

 Solar energy is the largest energy resource on Earth ‒ and is inexhaustible.

 The energy received from the sun in a single year, if entirely

captured and stored, would represent more than 6,000
years of total energy consumption.

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 Solar irradiance is maximal when the sun is directly overhead. When the sun is lower in the
sky, its energy is spread over a larger area, and is therefore weaker per surface area. This is
called the cosine effect.

 More specifically, supposing no atmosphere, in any place on a horizontal surface the direction
of the sun at its zenith forms an angle with the vertical. The irradiance received on that surface
is equal to the irradiance on a surface perpendicular to the direction of the sun, multiplied by
the cosine of this angle.

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 Solar rays can be categorized in terms of the wavelengths

that determine visible light, infrared and ultraviolet
(respectively ~40%, 50% and 10% of the radiated energy).

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 Solar irradiance varies over the year at diverse latitudes – very

much at high latitudes, especially beyond the polar circles, and
very little in the tropics.

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 Solar irradiance is of fundamental importance for harvesting

high quality solar energy and is deemed good to excellent
between 10o and 40o, South or North.

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Capturing solar energy

 There are two main methods of capturing energy from the sun:

• Heat: irradiative solar energy is easily transformed into heat through absorption
by gases, liquids or solid materials

• Photoreaction: solar radiation can be viewed as a flux of elementary particles

that can promote photoreactions and generate a flow of electrons.

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 Depending on the capturing mechanism, there are four

major direct solar energy technologies.

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Concentrating solar power

 Concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies use different mirror configurations to
concentrate solar energy onto a receiver and convert it into heat. The heat can then be
used to create steam to drive a turbine to produce electrical power or used as industrial
process heat.

CSP plants consist of (i) a solar collector field, (ii) a heat transfer circuit that may include thermal
storage and (iii) a conventional power block that converts the high temperature heat to electricity.

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 Four main categories of CSP technologies coexist, distinguished by the

way they focus the sun’s rays and the technology used to receive the
sun’s energy.

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 The 392 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, located in California's

Mojave Desert, is the world's largest CSP project currently in
operation. It deploys 173,500 heliostats, each with two mirrors,
focusing solar energy on boilers located on three centralized solar
power towers.

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 Heliostats must be distanced from each other to minimize

blocking and shading.

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 With parabolic troughs, the reflector tracks the sun each day
via one axis.

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Example 7.1: Land requirements for solar tower

If the incident solar radiation averages 700 W/m2 for 8 hours in California, estimate
the land area needed by a solar tower power plant using 80% efficient heliostats (2
m  8 m) to provide 10 MW of electrical power. How many heliostats will have to be
installed? Assume that the efficiency of converting solar heat to electrical energy is
35% and that the land area for the solar power plant is twice the land area of the
heliostats themselves.

Solution:
Heat input needed to provide 10 MW of electric power for 8 h

10 MW  8 h 80 MWh
= = 228.57 MWh
0.35 0.35
Equivalent amount of solar energy needed using 80% efficient heliostats

228.57 MWh
= 285.71 MWh
0.8

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Solar radiation collected in 8 h

 W  Wh 1 MWh MWh
 700 2   8 h  = 5600 2  6 = 0.0056
 m  m 10 Wh m2

Required heliostat land area

285.71 MWh 1 km2

= 51020 m2  6 2 = 0.051 km2
MWh 10 m
0.0056
m2

Land area needed by the solar tower plant = 2 × 0.051 km2 = 0.102 km2

Number of heliostats to be installed

51020 m2 153061 m2
= = 3189
2m×8m 16 m2

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Thermal energy storage for CSP

 Thermal storage is an important feature of CSP, allowing variations in sunlight to be
smoothed and plant capacity factors to be increased.

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 With six hours of storage, the Solana Generating Station near Gila
Bend, Arizona can dispatch energy to its customers during cloudy
periods and even after sunset.

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Environmental and social impacts

 Greenhouse gas emissions from CSP are low and, when thermal storage is
included, are not exacerbated by emissions from back-up plants.

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The good and bad of CSP

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Solar photovoltaic
 Photovoltaic (PV) cells, also called solar cells, generate electricity by exploiting the
photovoltaic effect.

In a solar cell, sunlight falls on a semiconductor, causing it to release electrons. The electrons flow
through a circuit that is completed when another semiconductor in the solar cell absorbs electrons and
passes them on to the first semiconductor.

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 Solar PV output varies during the day, the season and the year, as
a result of solar irradiance and the weather.

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 To collect as much radiation as possible, a PV module should face the

equator and must be tilted toward the sun. During summer (when the
amount and intensity of solar radiation is more), the tilt angle should
be less than the latitude to maximize solar collection. For maximum
solar collection in winter (when more solar radiation may be needed),
the tilt angle should be greater than the latitude angle.

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Solar PV applications
 PV has four end-use sectors with varying costs and performance requirements.

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 Distributed generation is an important application of solar PV.

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 The Topaz Solar Farm in San Luis Obispo County, California is

the world's largest photovoltaic (PV) power plant. This facility has
the capacity to generate 550 MW of solar electricity, which is
enough to power 160,000 homes and displace 377,000 tons of
CO2 every year.

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Environmental and social impacts

 Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from solar PV are low, but the technology's
overall environmental impact depends on power-system integration.

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 Recycling is crucial in ensuring the PV industry is sustainable.

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The good and bad of solar PV

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Solar thermal energy

 Solar thermal energy is a form of energy and a
technology for harnessing solar energy to
generate thermal energy or electrical energy for
use in the residential and commercial sectors.

 Solar thermal collection methods are many and

varied, but depend mostly on the principle of
glazing, in particular its ability to transmit visible
light but block infrared radiation. These include:

 Active solar heating/cooling

 Passive solar heating
 Solar daylighting

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Active solar heating

 In active solar heating systems, energy from the sun is gathered by collectors and used to
heat water or to heat a building.

In an active solar water heating system, a liquid is pumped through solar collectors. The heated liquid
flows through a heat exchanger that transfers the energy to water, which is used in a household.

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Example 7.2: Efficiency of solar collectors

A flat-plate solar collector feeds a storage tank of capacity 227 L. The flow rate of
the pumped water is 20  10–6 m3/s. The ambient air temperature is 15 oC. For 6
hours of operation, the temperature rise of the collector water averages 22 oC. If the
temperature rise in the storage tank is 16.5 oC, what is the system thermal
efficiency? What is the power rating of the collector? Assume that the density of
water is 106 g/m3 and the specific heat capacity of water is 4.2 J/g oC.

Solution:
6 m3 3600 s
Volume of water transferred = 20  10 6h = 432  103 m3
s 1h
106 g
Mass of water transferred = 432  10 3 m3  = 432000 g
1 m3

Heat energy collected = mass of water transferred  temperature rise

 specific heat capacity

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J
= 432000 g  22 o C  4.2
g oC
= 39.91  106 J

Capacity of storage tank = 227 L 

1000 g
= 227000 g
1L

Amount of heat needed to raise tank temperature by 16.5 oC

J
= 227000 g  16.5 o C  4.2 = 15.73  106 J
g oC
Thus, efficiency of collector system

heat transferred to tank 15.73  106 J

= = = 0.394 or 39.4%
heat collected 39.91  106 J

energy collected 39.91  106 J

Power rating of collector = = = 1848 W
time of collection 6 h  3600 s
1h

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Passive solar heating

 Passive solar energy technologies absorb solar energy, store and distribute it in a natural
manner (e.g., natural ventilation), without using mechanical devices (such as fans,
blowers, or pumps).

A passive solar house is designed to reduce heating and cooling expenses and is oriented according
to the yearly movement of the sun. In summer, the sun’s path is high in the sky and the overhang of the
roof shades the building and keeps it cool. In winter, the sun’s path is lower in the sky, so sunlight shines
into the house and warms it.

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Solar daylighting

 Daylighting is a combination of energy

conservation and passive solar design.

 It aims to make the most of the natural

daylight that is available.

 Traditional techniques include: shallow-

plan design, allowing daylight to
penetrate all rooms and corridors; light
wells in the centre of buildings; roof
lights; tall windows, which allow light to
penetrate deep inside rooms; task
lighting directly over the workplace,
rather than lighting the whole building
interior; and deep windows that reveal
Schematic of several daylighting concepts designed to
redistribute daylight into the office interior space. and light room surfaces to cut the risk of
glare.

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 In the solar settlement at Freiburg, Germany, the future of solar building

and living in harmony with nature is already a reality. All roofs are covered
with standard large area PV modules which are smartly integrated in a
plane above the south facing roofs of the different buildings. It is the first
housing community in the world in which all the homes produce a positive
energy balance due to their passive solar design integrated with active
solar heating and cooling.

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The good and bad of solar thermal energy

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Solar fuels
 Solar fuel technologies convert solar energy into chemical fuels, which can be a desirable
method of storing and transporting solar energy.

 They can be used in a much wider variety of higher-efficiency applications than just
electricity generation cycles.

 Solar fuels can be processed into liquid transportation fuels or used directly to generate
electricity in fuel cells; they can be employed as fuels for high-efficiency gas-turbine cycles
or internal combustion engines; and they can serve for upgrading fossil fuels, or for
producing industrial or domestic heat.

 There are three basic routes, alone or in combination, for producing storable and
transportable fuels from solar energy: (i) photochemical/photobiological; (ii) artificial
photosynthesis; and (iii) thermochemical approaches.

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Photochemical/Photobiological method
 Photochemical/photobiological routes make direct use of solar photon energy for
converting CO2 into synthetic liquid fuel (natural photosynthesis).

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Artificial photosynthesis
 Artificial photosynthesis (also called artificial leaves) mimics the natural process of
photosynthesis to convert raw materials like water and CO2 into clean fuels and
value-added chemicals (e.g., H2, CO and hydrocarbons).

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 Photocatalytic water splitting converts water into hydrogen ions and

oxygen, and is an active research area in artificial photosynthesis.

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Thermochemical routes
 Thermochemical routes are a long-term sustainable approach for hydrogen
production, either from pure water or from a carbonaceous feedstock.

 It involves energy-consuming (endothermic) reactions that make use of concentrated

solar irradiance as the energy source for high temperature process heat.

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Applications of solar fuels

 Solar fuels can not only be used for transport and electricity generation but also as
feedstock in (the chemical) industry.

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 Solar fuel can also be combined with fuel cell technologies, which
convert fuel to electricity and heat, to power a building or small
community.

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