Essay by Eric Worrall
Solar concentrators hypothetically offer the ability to coast on stored renewable energy at night, but this doesn’t seems to work well in practice.
Concentrated solar power is an old technology making a comeback. Here’s how it works
ABC Science / By technology reporter James Purtill
Posted Thu 6 Apr 2023 at 5:30amThursday 6 Apr 2023 at 5:30am, updated Thu 6 Apr 2023 at 12:41pmThere was a time, not long ago, when the future of electricity generation looked something like the opening scene of Blade Runner 2049, with endless arrays of mirrors in concentric circles
Concentrated solar power (CSP) uses mirrors to focus heat from the Sun to drive a steam turbine and generate electricity.
While CSP was once the great hope for replacing coal and gas-fired generation, it’s now generally considered to have been eclipsed by cheaper forms of renewable generation, like solar panels and wind turbines.
Recently, however, it’s been making a quiet comeback.
The reason for this boils down to three words that describe one of the major challenges of decarbonising the grid: overnight energy storage.
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Seems reasonable, so why isn’t everyone doing it?
One of the biggest downsides of solar concentrators, apart from the cost, is their habit of igniting protected birds. The following is a 2019 CBS report about the bird kills.
The issue appears to be the dazzling light of the focus of the solar concentrator, much brighter than the sun, attracts insects, just like an outdoor light at home. The insects are vaporised by the extreme heat of the air near the concentrator focus.
Birds are attracted by the concentration of insects near the concentrator focus, and follow the insects into the kill zone. Then larger birds follow the smaller birds.
People who work at solar concentrator facilities call the dying birds “streamers”, because they leave a smoke trail when they catch fire in mid flight.
If the industrial scale destruction of birds isn’t enough of a deterrent, there also appear to be substantial technical issues with the operation of solar concentrator plants. For example it is difficult on some days to maintain the temperature of the molten salt reservoir at the heart of the solar concentrator above its minimum operating temperature, so facilities generally have gas burners on standby, to top the heat up if the weather fails to oblige.
I’m sure public money will be spent on trying to pump this useless green energy idea. A track record of failure and environmental carnage is no deterrent to funding for green ideas.