22.3
Hence, the desiccant is dried and can be reused for adsorbing humidity.
Figure 22.10: Desiccant cooling.
Concentrated solar power (CSP)
In this section we take a closer look at concentrated solar power (CSP), where high
temperature fluids are used in steam turbines to produce electricity. Much of the early
attention on CSP systems was on small-scale applications, mainly for pumping water.
However, since about 1985 several large-scale power systems with a power output of up to
80 MW have been built.
The CSP technology is especially interesting for desert regions, where almost all the
solar radiation is incident as direct radiation. As illustrated in Figure 22.11, these systems
consist basically of a collector, where the solar energy is absorbed, a storage system,
usually water or phase change storage, a boiler that acts as a heat exchanger between the
operational fluids of the collector and the heat engine, and the heat engine itself, which
converts the thermal energy into mechanical energy. In large CSP plants, the heat engine is
a steam turbine, where the energy stored in the hot steam is partially converted to
rotational (mechanical) energy as the steam expands along the turbine. This
thermodynamic process is called the Rankine cycle, named after the Scottish engineer
William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872).
Hence, the desiccant is dried and can be reused for adsorbing humidity.
Figure 22.10: Desiccant cooling.
Concentrated solar power (CSP)
In this section we take a closer look at concentrated solar power (CSP), where high
temperature fluids are used in steam turbines to produce electricity. Much of the early
attention on CSP systems was on small-scale applications, mainly for pumping water.
However, since about 1985 several large-scale power systems with a power output of up to
80 MW have been built.
The CSP technology is especially interesting for desert regions, where almost all the
solar radiation is incident as direct radiation. As illustrated in Figure 22.11, these systems
consist basically of a collector, where the solar energy is absorbed, a storage system,
usually water or phase change storage, a boiler that acts as a heat exchanger between the
operational fluids of the collector and the heat engine, and the heat engine itself, which
converts the thermal energy into mechanical energy. In large CSP plants, the heat engine is
a steam turbine, where the energy stored in the hot steam is partially converted to
rotational (mechanical) energy as the steam expands along the turbine. This
thermodynamic process is called the Rankine cycle, named after the Scottish engineer
William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872).