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Converting disused coal plants into Carnot batteries IMAGE@DLR Retiring coal power plants could see a new life serving the green economy by storing renewable energy as thermal batteries, delivering the stored energy back to the grid using the former coal plant’s existing power blocks and grid connections. Leveraging the low cost of the molten salt …
Continue reading “Make Carnot Batteries with Molten Salt Thermal Energy Storage in ex-Coal Plants”
A study commissioned by the Chilean government and presented before the SolarPACES Conference in Morocco makes data available to potential participants in a Chilean CSP industry. The study, Local Content in CSP:CST Projects- Assessment of the Chilean Industry is designed to put together useful information for both international CSP developers bidding in auctions and local …
Continue reading “Study of Chile’s CSP Potential for Domestic Manufacturing”
Shouhang’s 100MW CSP project at Dunhuang IMAGE @CSPPLAZA China could be the first to deploy s-CO2 in CSP The world’s initial Concentrated SolarPower (CSP) plants continue to use the legacy steam cycles of conventional thermal plants. But steam cycle is a mature technology with temperature-based efficiency limits, hampering the potential to raise efficiency and lower costs. …
Continue reading “Shouhang and EDF to Test s-CO2 Cycle in Concentrated Solar Power”
Merredin Spirulina Algae Farm in Western Australia IMAGE@ ThinkSiD Algae is a potential energy feedstock that is synergistic with solar fuels because algae can be grown in salt water on cheap desert land with a good solar resource, and it also contains the hydrocarbon chemicals needed for making solar fuels (hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen). …
Continue reading “Australian Researchers Design a Solar Process for Algae-Derived Solar Fuel”
The tower form of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is very young technology. Less than a gigawatt is deployed globally, making it a nascent technology at the “Cambrian explosion” stage; multiple innovations are still being explored to cut costs. (How tower CSP works) A new economic study looks at reducing its Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) …
Thermal energy stored in steel slag could replace fossil fuels used for heat in steel production Slag is the steel industry’s biggest waste byproduct. It could find a use: to cut the carbon emissions from steel production Starting this year, thermal energy researchers in Spain’s Basque Country will test the use of slag as thermal …
Continue reading “Could a Steel Waste Byproduct Cut the Steel Industry’s Own CO2 Emissions?”
IMAGE @ Johan Lilliestam: How CSP expertise moves from nation to nation as development is incentivized As China closes in on doubling today’s entire total global capacity of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), a new paper, The Dragon Awakens: Will China Save or Conquer Concentrating Solar Power? analyses the potential impact that the nation’s ambitions, and …
To replace the heat used by fossil fuels in industrial processes, researchers test solar thermal reactor designs at the PROMES.testing lab at Odeillo in the French Pyranees, capable of temperatures of up to 3,000°C IMAGE @ Sascha Burkhardt Renewable energy researchers have been looking into how to cut CO2 emissions from processing industrial minerals like cement …
Continue reading “Researchers Test Solar to Cut CO2 in Cement Processing”
IMAGE @ Guiseppe Franchini and Antonio Perdichizzi Instead of running air conditioners on fossil-fueled electricity, University of Bergamo researchers Guiseppe Franchini and Antonio Perdichizzi propose an alternative cooling technology; using a thermal form of solar energy to provide solar district cooling in the Saudi Kingdom. Their study of the economics of solar district cooling was …
Continue reading “Study Investigates Solar District Cooling Potential for Saudi Arabia”
Wildfires in California IMAGE@Wikipedia California is a global leader in climate policy, and its goal of 100% clean energy by 2045 is now law in the 5th largest economy after China, the US, Japan and Germany. While the state has had a cap and trade program in place since 2013, it has been the simplicity …
Continue reading “Can California Really Meet its 100% Clean Energy Target?”