Applications of Solar Energy

INTRODUCTION

Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, is harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, solar photovoltaics, solar thermal electricity, solar architecture and artificial photosynthesis.[1][2] Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels and solar thermal collectors to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.

In 2011, the International Energy Agency said that “the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries’ energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating climate change, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global. Hence the additional costs of the incentives for early deployment should be considered learning investments; they must be wisely spent and need to be widely shared”.

Applications of solar technology

Average insolation showing land area (small black dots) required to replace the world primary energy supply with solar electricity (18 TW is 568 Exajoule, EJ, per year). Insolation for most people is from 150 to 300 W/m2 or 3.5 to 7.0 kWh/m2/day.Solar energy refers primarily to the use of solar radiation for practical ends. However, all renewable energies, other than geothermal and tidal, derive their energy from the sun.

Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive or active depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute sunlight. Active solar techniques use photovoltaic panels, pumps, and fans to convert sunlight into useful outputs. Passive solar techniques include selecting materials with favorable thermal properties, designing spaces that naturally circulate air, and referencing the position of a building to the Sun. Active solar technologies increase the supply of energy and are considered supply side technologies, while passive solar technologies reduce the need for alternate resources and are generally considered demand side technologies.[18]

Architecture and urban planningMain articles: Passive solar building design and Urban heat island  Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany won the 2007 Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. with this passive house designed specifically for the humid and hot subtropical climate.[19]Sunlight has influenced building design since the beginning of architectural history.[20] Advanced solar architecture and urban planning methods were first employed by the Greeks and Chinese, who oriented their buildings toward the south to provide light and warmth.[21]

The common features of passive solar architecture are orientation relative to the Sun, compact proportion (a low surface area to volume ratio), selective shading (overhangs) and thermal mass.[20] When these features are tailored to the local climate and environment they can produce well-lit spaces that stay in a comfortable temperature range. Socrates’ Megaron House is a classic example of passive solar design.[20] The most recent approaches to solar design use computer modeling tying together solar lighting, heating and ventilation systems in an integrated solar design package.[22] Active solar equipment such as pumps, fans and switchable windows can complement passive design and improve system performance.

Urban heat islands (UHI) are metropolitan areas with higher temperatures than that of the surrounding environment. The higher temperatures are a result of increased absorption of the Solar light by urban materials such as asphalt and concrete, which have lower albedos and higher heat capacities than those in the natural environment. A straightforward method of counteracting the UHI effect is to paint buildings and roads white and plant trees. Using these methods, a hypothetical “cool communities” program in Los Angeles has projected that urban temperatures could be reduced by approximately 3 °C at an estimated cost of US$1 billion, giving estimated total annual benefits of US$530 million from reduced air-conditioning costs and healthcare savings.[23]

Agriculture and horticulture

Greenhouses like these in the Westland municipality of the Netherlands grow vegetables, fruits and flowers.Agriculture and horticulture seek to optimize the capture of solar energy in order to optimize the productivity of plants. Techniques such as timed planting cycles, tailored row orientation, staggered heights between rows and the mixing of plant varieties can improve crop yields.[24][25] While sunlight is generally considered a plentiful resource, the exceptions highlight the importance of solar energy to agriculture. During the short growing seasons of the Little Ice Age, French and English farmers employed fruit walls to maximize the collection of solar energy.

These walls acted as thermal masses and accelerated ripening by keeping plants warm. Early fruit walls were built perpendicular to the ground and facing south, but over time, sloping walls were developed to make better use of sunlight. In 1699, Nicolas Fatio de Duillier even suggested using a tracking mechanism which could pivot to follow the Sun.[26] Applications of solar energy in agriculture aside from growing crops include pumping water, drying crops, brooding chicks and drying chicken manure.[27][28] More recently the technology has been embraced by vinters, who use the energy generated by solar panels to power grape presses.[29]

Greenhouses convert solar light to heat, enabling year-round production and the growth (in enclosed environments) of specialty crops and other plants not naturally suited to the local climate. Primitive greenhouses were first used during Roman times to produce cucumbers year-round for the Roman emperor Tiberius.[30] The first modern greenhouses were built in Europe in the 16th century to keep exotic plants brought back from explorations abroad.[31] Greenhouses remain an important part of horticulture today, and plastic transparent materials have also been used to similar effect in polytunnels and row covers.

Transport and reconnaissanceMain articles: Solar vehicle, Solar-charged vehicle, Electric boat, and Solar balloon

Australia hosts the World Solar Challenge where solar cars like the Nuna3 race through a 3,021 km (1,877 mi) course from Darwin to Adelaide.Development of a solar-powered car has been an engineering goal since the 1980s. The World Solar Challenge is a biannual solar-powered car race, where teams from universities and enterprises compete over 3,021 kilometres (1,877 mi) across central Australia from Darwin to Adelaide. In 1987, when it was founded, the winner’s average speed was 67 kilometres per hour (42 mph) and by 2007 the winner’s average speed had improved to 90.87 kilometres per hour (56.46 mph).[32] The North American Solar Challenge and the planned South African Solar Challenge are comparable competitions that reflect an international interest in the engineering and development of solar powered vehicles.[33][34]

Some vehicles use solar panels for auxiliary power, such as for air conditioning, to keep the interior cool, thus reducing fuel consumption.[35][36]

In 1975, the first practical solar boat was constructed in England.[37] By 1995, passenger boats incorporating PV panels began appearing and are now used extensively.[38] In 1996, Kenichi Horie made the first solar powered crossing of the Pacific Ocean, and the sun21 catamaran made the first solar powered crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the winter of 2006–2007.[39] There are plans to circumnavigate the globe in 2010.[40]

Helios UAV in solar powered flight.In 1974, the unmanned AstroFlight Sunrise plane made the first solar flight. On 29 April 1979, the Solar Riser made the first flight in a solar-powered, fully controlled, man carrying flying machine, reaching an altitude of 40 feet (12 m). In 1980, the Gossamer Penguin made the first piloted flights powered solely by photovoltaics. This was quickly followed by the Solar Challenger which crossed the English Channel in July 1981. In 1990 Eric Scott Raymond in 21 hops flew from California to North Carolina using solar power.[41] Developments then turned back to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with the Pathfinder (1997) and subsequent designs, culminating in the Helios which set the altitude record for a non-rocket-propelled aircraft at 29,524 metres (96,864 ft) in 2001.[42] The Zephyr, developed by BAE Systems, is the latest in a line of record-breaking solar aircraft, making a 54-hour flight in 2007, and month-long flights are envisioned by 2010.[43]

A solar balloon is a black balloon that is filled with ordinary air. As sunlight shines on the balloon, the air inside is heated and expands causing an upward buoyancy force, much like an artificially heated hot air balloon. Some solar balloons are large enough for human flight, but usage is generally limited to the toy market as the surface-area to payload-weight ratio is relatively high.[44]

Daylighting

Daylighting features such as this oculus at the top of the Pantheon, in Rome, Italy have been in use since antiquity.The history of lighting is dominated by the use of natural light. The Romans recognized a right to light as early as the 6th century and English law echoed these judgments with the Prescription Act of 1832.[45][46] In the 20th century artificial lighting became the main source of interior illumination but daylighting techniques and hybrid solar lighting solutions are ways to reduce energy consumption.

Daylighting systems collect and distribute sunlight to provide interior illumination. This passive technology directly offsets energy use by replacing artificial lighting, and indirectly offsets non-solar energy use by reducing the need for air-conditioning.[47] Although difficult to quantify, the use of natural lighting also offers physiological and psychological benefits compared to artificial lighting.[47] Daylighting design implies careful selection of window types, sizes and orientation; exterior shading devices may be considered as well.

Deciduous trees at the east and west ends of buildings offer shade in the summer and do not block the sun in the winter.[48] Individual features include sawtooth roofs, clerestory windows, light shelves, skylights and light tubes. They may be incorporated into existing structures, but are most effective when integrated into a solar design package that accounts for factors such as glare, heat flux and time-of-use. When daylighting features are properly implemented they can reduce lighting-related energy requirements by 25%.[49]

Hybrid solar lighting (HSL) is an active solar method of providing interior illumination. HSL systems collect sunlight using focusing mirrors that track the Sun and use optical fibers to transmit it inside the building to supplement conventional lighting. In single-story applications these systems are able to transmit 50% of the direct sunlight received.[50]

Solar lights that charge during the day and light up at dusk are a common sight along walkways.[51] Solar-charged lanterns have become popular in developing countries where they provide a safer and cheaper alternative to kerosene lamps.[52]

Although daylight saving time is promoted as a way to use sunlight to save energy, recent research reports contradictory results: several studies report savings, but just as many suggest no effect or even a net loss, particularly when gasoline consumption is taken into account. Electricity use is greatly affected by geography, climate and economics, making it hard to generalize from single studies.[53]

Solar thermalMain article: Solar thermal energy

Solar thermal technologies can be used for water heating, space heating, space cooling and process heat generation.[54]

Water heatingMain articles: Solar hot water and Solar combisystem

Solar water heaters facing the Sun to maximize gain.Solar hot water systems use sunlight to heat water. In low geographical latitudes (below 40 degrees) from 60 to 70% of the domestic hot water use with temperatures up to 60 °C can be provided by solar heating systems.[55] The most common types of solar water heaters are evacuated tube collectors (44%) and glazed flat plate collectors (34%) generally used for domestic hot water; and unglazed plastic collectors (21%) used mainly to heat swimming pools.[56]

As of 2007, the total installed capacity of solar hot water systems is approximately 154 GW.[57] China is the world leader in their deployment with 70 GW installed as of 2006 and a long term goal of 210 GW by 2020.[58] Israel and Cyprus are the per capita leaders in the use of solar hot water systems with over 90% of homes using them.[59] In the United States, Canada and Australia heating swimming pools is the dominant application of solar hot water with an installed capacity of 18 GW as of 2005.[18]

Heating, cooling and ventilationMain articles: Solar heating, Thermal mass, Solar chimney, and Solar air conditioning  Solar House #1 of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, built in 1939, used Seasonal thermal energy storage for year-round heating.In the United States, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 30% (4.65 EJ) of the energy used in commercial buildings and nearly 50% (10.1 EJ) of the energy used in residential buildings.[49][60] Solar heating, cooling and ventilation technologies can be used to offset a portion of this energy.

Thermal mass is any material that can be used to store heat—heat from the Sun in the case of solar energy. Common thermal mass materials include stone, cement and water. Historically they have been used in arid climates or warm temperate regions to keep buildings cool by absorbing solar energy during the day and radiating stored heat to the cooler atmosphere at night. However they can be used in cold temperate areas to maintain warmth as well. The size and placement of thermal mass depend on several factors such as climate, daylighting and shading conditions. When properly incorporated, thermal mass maintains space temperatures in a comfortable range and reduces the need for auxiliary heating and cooling equipment.[61]

A solar chimney (or thermal chimney, in this context) is a passive solar ventilation system composed of a vertical shaft connecting the interior and exterior of a building. As the chimney warms, the air inside is heated causing an updraft that pulls air through the building. Performance can be improved by using glazing and thermal mass materials[62] in a way that mimics greenhouses.

Deciduous trees and plants have been promoted as a means of controlling solar heating and cooling. When planted on the southern side of a building, their leaves provide shade during the summer, while the bare limbs allow light to pass during the winter.[63] Since bare, leafless trees shade 1/3 to 1/2 of incident solar radiation, there is a balance between the benefits of summer shading and the corresponding loss of winter heating.[64] In climates with significant heating loads, deciduous trees should not be planted on the southern side of a building because they will interfere with winter solar availability. They can, however, be used on the east and west sides to provide a degree of summer shading without appreciably affecting winter solar gain.[65]

Water treatmentMain articles: Solar still, Solar water disinfection, Solar desalination, and Solar Powered Desalination Unit
Solar water disinfection in Indonesia

Small scale solar powered sewerage treatment plant.Solar distillation can be used to make saline or brackish water potable. The first recorded instance of this was by 16th-century Arab alchemists.[66] A large-scale solar distillation project was first constructed in 1872 in the Chilean mining town of Las Salinas.[67] The plant, which had solar collection area of 4,700 m2, could produce up to 22,700 L per day and operated for 40 years.[67] Individual still designs include single-slope, double-slope (or greenhouse type), vertical, conical, inverted absorber, multi-wick, and multiple effect.[66] These stills can operate in passive, active, or hybrid modes. Double-slope stills are the most economical for decentralized domestic purposes, while active multiple effect units are more suitable for large-scale applications.[66]

Solar water disinfection (SODIS) involves exposing water-filled plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles to sunlight for several hours.[68] Exposure times vary depending on weather and climate from a minimum of six hours to two days during fully overcast conditions.[69] It is recommended by the World Health Organization as a viable method for household water treatment and safe storage.[70] Over two million people in developing countries use this method for their daily drinking water.[69]

Solar energy may be used in a water stabilisation pond to treat waste water without chemicals or electricity. A further environmental advantage is that
algae grow in such ponds and consume carbon dioxide in photosynthesis, although algae may produce toxic chemicals that make the water unusable.[71][72]

CookingMain article: Solar cooker

The Solar Bowl in Auroville, India, concentrates sunlight on a movable receiver to produce steam for cooking.Solar cookers use sunlight for cooking, drying and pasteurization. They can be grouped into three broad categories: box cookers, panel cookers and reflector cookers.[73] The simplest solar cooker is the box cooker first built by Horace de Saussure in 1767.[74]

A basic box cooker consists of an insulated container with a transparent lid. It can be used effectively with partially overcast skies and will typically reach temperatures of 90–150 °C.[75] Panel cookers use a reflective panel to direct sunlight onto an insulated container and reach temperatures comparable to box cookers. Reflector cookers use various concentrating geometries (dish, trough, Fresnel mirrors) to focus light on a cooking container. These cookers reach temperatures of 315 °C and above but require direct light to function properly and must be repositioned to track the Sun.[76]

The solar bowl is a concentrating technology employed by the Solar Kitchen at Auroville, in Tamil Nadu, India, where a stationary spherical reflector focuses light along a line perpendicular to the sphere’s interior surface, and a computer control system moves the receiver to intersect this line. Steam is produced in the receiver at temperatures reaching 150 °C and then used for process heat in the kitchen.[77]

A reflector developed by Wolfgang Scheffler in 1986 is used in many solar kitchens. Scheffler reflectors are flexible parabolic dishes that combine aspects of trough and power tower concentrators. Polar tracking is used to follow the Sun’s daily course and the curvature of the reflector is adjusted for seasonal variations in the incident angle of sunlight. These reflectors can reach temperatures of 450–650 °C and have a fixed focal point, which simplifies cooking.[78] The world’s largest Scheffler reflector system in Abu Road, Rajasthan, India is capable of cooking up to 35,000 meals a day.[79] As of 2008, over 2,000 large Scheffler cookers had been built worldwide.[80]

Process heatMain articles: Solar pond, Salt evaporation pond, and Solar furnace Solar concentrating technologies such as parabolic dish, trough and Scheffler reflectors can provide process heat for commercial and industrial applications. The first commercial system was the Solar Total Energy Project (STEP) in Shenandoah, Georgia, USA where a field of 114 parabolic dishes provided 50% of the process heating, air conditioning and electrical requirements for a clothing factory. This grid-connected cogeneration system provided 400 kW of electricity plus thermal energy in the form of 401 kW steam and 468 kW chilled water, and had a one hour peak load thermal storage.[81]

Evaporation ponds are shallow pools that concentrate dissolved solids through evaporation. The use of evaporation ponds to obtain salt from sea water is one of the oldest applications of solar energy. Modern uses include concentrating brine solutions used in leach mining and removing dissolved solids from waste streams.[82]

Clothes lines, clotheshorses, and clothes racks dry clothes through evaporation by wind and sunlight without consuming electricity or gas. In some states of the United States legislation protects the “right to dry” clothes.[83]

Unglazed transpired collectors (UTC) are perforated sun-facing walls used for preheating ventilation air. UTCs can raise the incoming air temperature up to 22 °C and deliver outlet temperatures of 45–60 °C.[84] The short payback period of transpired collectors (3 to 12 years) makes them a more cost-effective alternative than glazed collection systems.[84] As of 2003, over 80 systems with a combined collector area of 35,000 m2 had been installed worldwide, including an 860 m2 collector in Costa Rica used for drying coffee beans and a 1,300 m2 collector in Coimbatore, India used for drying marigolds.[28]

Electricity production

View of Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System from Yates Well Road, San Bernadino County, California. The Clark Mountain Range can be seen in the distance. Main article: Solar power Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). CSP systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. PV converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect.

Commercial CSP plants were first developed in the 1980s. Since 1985 the eventually 354 MW SEGS CSP installation, in the Mojave Desert of California, is the largest solar power plant in the world. Other large CSP plants include the 150 MW Solnova Solar Power Station and the 100 MW Andasol solar power station, both in Spain. The 250 MW Agua Caliente Solar Project, in the United States, and the 221 MW Charanka Solar Park in India, are the world’s largest photovoltaic plants. Solar projects exceeding 1 GW are being developed, but most of the deployed photovoltaics are in small rooftop arrays of less than 5 kW, which are grid connected using net metering and/or a feed-in tariff.[85]

Concentrated solar powerSee also: Concentrated solar power

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. The concentrated heat is then used as a heat source for a conventional power plant. A wide range of concentrating technologies exists; the most developed are the parabolic trough, the concentrating linear fresnel reflector, the Stirling dish and the solar power tower. Various techniques are used to track the Sun and focus light. In all of these systems a working fluid is heated by the concentrated sunlight, and is then used for power generation or energy storage.

Photovoltaics
19 MW solar park in Germany

NREL compilation of best research solar cell efficiencies from 1976 to presentMain article: Photovoltaics A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell (PV), is a device that converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect. The first solar cell was constructed by Charles Fritts in the 1880s. In 1931 a German engineer, Dr Bruno Lange, developed a photo cell using silver selenide in place of copper oxide. Although the prototype selenium cells converted less than 1% of incident light into electricity, both Ernst Werner von Siemens and James Clerk Maxwell recognized the importance of this discovery. Following the work of Russell Ohl in the 1940s, researchers Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller and Daryl Chapin created the silicon solar cell in 1954. These early solar cells cost 286 USD/watt and reached efficiencies of 4.5–6%. By 2012 available efficiencies exceed 20% and the maximum efficiency of research photovoltaics is over 40%.

OthersBesides concentrated solar power and photovoltaics, there are some other techniques used to generated electricity using solar power. These include:

Dye-sensitized solar cells,
Luminescent solar concentrators (a type of concentrated photovoltaics or CPV technology), Biohybrid solar cells,
Photon Enhanced Thermionic Emission systems

Fuel productionMain articles: Solar chemical, Solar fuel, and Artificial photosynthesis Solar chemical processes use solar energy to drive chemical reactions. These processes offset energy that would otherwise come from a fossil fuel source and can also convert solar energy into storable and transportable fuels. Solar induced chemical reactions can be divided into thermochemical or photochemical. A variety of fuels can be produced by artificial photosynthesis.

[95] The multielectron catalytic chemistry involved in making carbon-based fuels (such as methanol) from reduction of carbon dioxide is challenging; a feasible alternative is hydrogen production from protons, though use of water as the source of electrons (as plants do) requires mastering the multielectron oxidation of two water molecules to molecular oxygen. Some have envisaged working solar fuel plants in coastal metropolitan areas by 2050- the splitting of sea water providing hydrogen to be run through adjacent fuel-cell electric power plants and the pure water by-product going directly into the municipal water system. Another vision involves all human structures covering the earth’s surface (i.e., roads, vehicles and buildings) doing photosynthesis more efficiently than plants.

Hydrogen production technologies been a significant area of solar chemical research since the 1970s. Aside from electrolysis driven by photovoltaic or photochemical cells, several thermochemical processes have also been explored. One such route uses concentrators to split water into oxygen and hydrogen at high temperatures (2300-2600 °C). Another approach uses the heat from solar concentrators to drive the steam reformation of natural gas thereby increasing the overall hydrogen yield compared to conventional reforming methods. Thermochemical cycles characterized by the decomposition and regeneration of reactants present another avenue for hydrogen production. The Solzinc process under development at the Weizmann Institute uses a 1 MW solar furnace to decompose zinc oxide (ZnO) at temperatures above 1200 °C. This initial reaction produces pure zinc, which can subsequently be reacted with water to produce hydrogen.