HYBRID SOLAR GAS SYSTEM
As solar power produces
infinite energy but only demerits are its cost and sunlight because it will
only work when there is a sun. By taking these two factors in consideration,
Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed a
hybrid solar gas system that increases efficiency of natural gas of power
plants and decreases emission of carbon.
The system consist of a
parabolic mirrors that focus the sunlight to a chemical reactor that is
(1.2x0.6m) in length and is lined with narrow channels that are 8.1 mm wide.
The sunlight heat up natural gas in these channels nearer to the catalyst that
converts gas molecules into carbon and hydrogen dioxide mixture called
synthetic gas or syngas. There is a heat exchanger near to the reactor that
accumulates all waste heat from the reaction and reuse it back to reactor until
60% percent of sunlight is converted into chemical energy. The test of that
system indicates that a natural gas plant can work on 20 % more
efficiency.
PNNL engineer Bob
Wegeng said that our system is capable of using less natural gas to produce
same quantity of electricity as power plants are producing now. He also said
that our system decreases the greenhouse gas emission as compared with the
emission through fossil fuels.
It is known that the
system will work more efficient in areas where the sun shine is more and it can
be easily adapted to any natural gas power plant. For instance a 500 MW power
plant needs about 3000 dishes of solar and also the synthetic gas can also be
used to produce synthetic fuels for the vehicles
The PNNL test systems
at its own campus, Richland where Washington is as a part of it to produce more
efficiency to cut down the cost to six US cent per kilowatt hour by 2020 so
there will be a competition with traditional fossil fuels plants. The
Microproducts breakthrough Institute that is a research and development
facility in Corvallis, Oregon has aim to develop mass producing system whereas
industrial partner Solar Thermo Chemical LLC plan is to develop and manufacture
that system before selling.
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