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Solar energy study for col

Introduction:

sun is the main source of energy on the planet, and from the sun  was the distributing and the turning of the most sources of energy such as wind, geothermal, hydrogen and  solar energy and other  sources like coal stone and timber.   Solar energy consider as one of the first and important source energy used by human.  Their simple uses were for drying things and heating their houses. In other hand, The use of fossil fuels cause the weakening of the ozone layer. The disappearances of large areas of forest are causing to rise the temperatures on earth. This high temperature is producing an uncertain future for coming generations. Because of all that, people try to find alternating sources such as turn to solar energy. Solar energy is a clean, renewable resource and easy to install. It has an unlimited useful life and can be easily adapted to environments. Nowadays, solar energy has been one of the most important power sources since 1950s, but it was not widespread because of the expensive and the ineffective of its technology.

In this report I will explain the meaning of solar energy, history, methods, types, the common uses, costs , advantages and disadvantages ,  I am going to mention the largest solar power plants in the world and UAE, and finally some recommendations and solutions for it.

Definition of solar energy:

Solar energy is the energy from the sun that is converted into thermal or electrical energy. This also means the use of sun light to produce electricity energy, to heat water, to heat or cool homes.  Solar word refers to the sun and energy refers to the process of using the solar energy to provide other type of energy such as electricity energy. The sun star is a huge ball of heat and light result from the nuclear fusion inside its core and this reaction releases the energy that travel to the surface of sun which provide the sun light. Sun light is a clear, renewable source which is sustainable meaning that it is not run out.

 

History of Solar energy:

 

Knowing the history of solar energy is very important to understand the causes of global warming and to find alternate sources energy that can be used. Solar energy has been used by human for thousands of years. Human societies have always tended to develop ways to develop the sun’s energy, water and wind until the beginning of the era of the Industrial Revolution, where the people were focus in using coal, which is considered the oldest fossil fuel and the most readily available. Growing global concern about environmental and social impacts of the use of fossil fuels such as pollution and global warming, mining accidents and the global economy. As well as concern over the sustainability of these sources makes the world due consideration in the leaves of the past and the increased attention to renewable sources of energy, which carries out with use and has no toxic results. In the 18th century, the French physicist Edmond Becquerel noted the first photoelectric effect and discovered the photovoltaic and how light could be turned into energy. Also, William Adams used mirrors and the sun to power a steam engine and this designed still in use today which called Power Tower Concept. In the beginning of the 19th century, Albert Einstein described the photoelectric effect and created a solar power motor and in 1920 he received Nobel Prize. In the mid of 19th century, Hoffman Electronics discovered the solar cells and increased commercial  solar cells efficiencies in 1960. Then, Dr. Elliot Berman designed a less expensive solar cell by reduce the price by $100 per watt to $20 per watt. After 1960s, the space industry began wide use of solar technology through present day.

Methods of Solar Energy

Solar energy in our houses:

The method of how solar power works in houses is very simple, its as following.

When the sunbeam hit the solar panel, it converts solar energy to direct current of electricity, and then the energy will transfer through the inverter which is used to convert the direct current to alternating current, after that the energy will transfer through breaker box to provide interconnection point to the consumer or grid. Finally the meter device connected to the breaker box will measure the energy from the solar panel and the building load.

Solar electricity

It is also known as photovoltaic (PV) system, which is converting sunlight into electricity. Solar cells combine of semiconductor materials. When sunlight is absorbed by these materials, the solar energy beats electrons loose from their atoms, this idea is known by photoelectric effect. Then these free electrons travel into a circuit built into the solar cell to form electrical current.  PV systems can still produce electricity on cloudy days, but not as efficient as on a sunny day. The basic PV or solar cell typically produces only a small amount of power. To produce more power, solar cells (about 40) can be interconnected to form panels or modules. PV modules range in output from 10 to 300 watts. If more power is needed, more modules can be installed on a building. About 10to 20 PV arrays can provide enough power for a household. It can be mounted at a fixed angle facing south, or it can be mounted on a tracking device that follows the sun, allowing them to capture the most sunlight over the course of a day.

Solar Heating

 

Solar panels are designed to collect the heat from the sun and then transfer it to your domestic hot water system.  Most of the commercial versions available are indirect, the sun warmed water transferring through a coil in a hot water tank, heating up the water it contains without ever coming into direct contact with it. Then, once it has given up most of its heat, the cool water returns to the solar panels to begin the process all over again. Direct systems do exist, in which water from the panels enters the domestic hot supply, but although this method has some advantages, it is not well right for use in areas with hard water.

Types and Uses of solar energy:

 

Solar energy is typically classified by the way of converting it into useful energy or by the type of converted energy. The types of the first way are called passive solar energy and active solar energy. And the types of the second way are called solar thermal energy, photovoltaic solar power and concentrating solar power.

Passive solar energy consists of harnessing the sun energy without using chemical or mechanical devices, such as using south facing windows to provide light and heat for houses. This type of solar energy is very simple to design.

Passive solar building design for instance, has five important components (collector, absorber, thermal mass, distribution and controller).  The sunlight enters the building through large window (collector) which be positioned to face the sun with angle of 30 degrees to the south, then the light hits the dark surface (absorber) which stores the light and absorb it as heat, thermal mass which is the material used below the absorber near the surface and used to store the light too. After that, heat will be distributed and transferred in three modes such as conduction, convection and radiation absolutely. The controller is the roof of the home which used for shading the area of collector during summer.

Active Solar energy is as same as passive except it uses mechanical devices in collecting, storing, and distributing solar energy in houses. The most known example for using this type of energy is Water Heating Systems which used for space heating, water heating and pool heating. It works in very complex way and cost more comparing to passive type. In active systems, when the sunlight hit the solar panel it heats liquid inside the collectors and pumps hot liquid to the water tank which heats up water inside the tank then transfer this hot water for household uses.

Photovoltaic energy is the conversion of sunlight into electricity through a photovoltaic cell, which called nowadays as solar cell.  A photovoltaic cell is a non mechanical device usually made from silicon alloys. Photovoltaic solar cells are devices used to generate electricity in direct way from sunlight. There are two main types which are single crystal silicon and dye sensitized. The first type is widespread and very expensive to manufacturing, but the second type is less proven, flexible, newer and manufacturing it is cheaper.

Solar panels are combined of groups of solar cells inside a frame. They are the key component of all home solar power systems that can be typically classified into four types which are Mono crystalline silicon panels, polycrystalline silicon panels, string ribbon silicon panels and amorphous silicon panels. These types can be classified in order of their efficient. Monocrystalline silicon panels are the most expensive but more effective . polycrystalline silicon panels are less efficient than monocrystalline silicon solar panels which have electricity return rate about 12% to 14% and are cheaper because if one of its cells damaged then you can replace it with new one without replace the entire panel. String ribbon silicon panels and polycrystalline silicon panels are same in electricity return rate except that the PV cells used in string ribbon silicon panels are made of silicon mixed with metal bars.  The lowest electricity return rate are the amorphous silicon panels which have 5% to 6% because they are not made from crystalline silicon.

These panels can be used in many fields such as electricity, heating, cooling and lighting. They can be used to generate electricity for homes by using PV solar cells which form solar panels that you can see on many rooftops nowadays. By connecting these solar panels to an inverter they provide electricity that can be used for any electronic device in homes. In solar heating fields, using solar collector to heat homes, domestic water or swimming pool by passive and active methods. In addition to that, we can use solar panels to cool our homes in summer by rejecting the heat outside the home through the windows. Finally we can use solar panels to light outdoor homes or to use it to light the streets.

 

 

Data and Discussion:

 

Cost of solar energy system

In order to understand the costs of solar energy, we need to compare it to another energy source such as hydrocarbon fuels in generating electricity. The cost of solar energy is more expensive than the cost of hydrocarbon fuels energy. We can measure  that by converting the their costs into kilowatt per hours. For example, one ton of coal can produce approximately 6,182 KWH of electricity which cost about $36 which equal to less than $0.01 per KWH. In other hand, barrel of oil $70 per barrel could produce 1,700 KWH which cost approximately $0.05 per KWH. These are some of formulas used to measures the cost of energy.

1 ton of coal = 6,182 KWH è by dividing this value by the cost of 1 ton, the result = $0.006 per KWH

1 barrel of oil = 1,699 KWH è by dividing this value by the cost of 1 barrel of oil, the result = $0.06 per KWH

From these results we can get that the cost of hydrocarbon fuel are lower than the cost of solar energy, where 2 KW of solar energy system may cost about $45,000 and solar energy system associate to $9,000 a kilowatt which is not helpful in comparing the cost of generating electricity of coal or oil. In order to understand the cost of solar energy more we need to use some measurements of how much the system cost.

The average systems costs is $95 per square foot, and the average solar panel output is equal to 10.6 watts per square foot . by dividing the value of average system costs by the value of average solar panel output we can got the average of solar energy system which equal to $8.95 per watt. In order to compare this value to the costs of coal and oil we need to convert $8.95 per watt into KWH.(Figure 1)

Figure 1: Cost of Energy per KWH

 

Prospect of Global PV Market

 

The trend of Global PV market Solar Cell production is grow with average up to 35.8% in the last four year, and the system installation is more than 30%. Generating electricity cost will be able competitive with conventional power generation. PV Industry Global production is approximately US $1.3Billion in 2000. Estimated for future production costs are: US $4.23Billion in 2010, US$ 32.3Billion by 2012,and US$48.85Bilion in 2020. from(BCC Research)

 

Figure 3: solar market volume from 2003 – 2010

 

 

Moreover, in order to know the cost of solar energy system we need to know the costs of the component used in the system such us the cost of solar panels, solar inverter, labor, and the cost of balancing of the solar energy system. For a typical commercial system size is around 30kW. Solar costs are divided into product and service costs. Below is a simple breakdown of the costs:

Figure 2 SE system components costs:

 

The largest cost and most expensive component of solar energy system is the solar panel which cost $54,688 and making up between 44 % to 52 % of the total cost. The second largest cost is the inverter which cost approximately $10,938 and the cost of labor who works in building the solar energy system is not constant value but the cost is making up 7-11% of total cost and 9-10% of the system’s cost. Finally, the cost of BOS is 18,750 which typically come with ten years warranty.(Figure 2)

 

Advantages & Disadvantages:

 

Solar energy is same as the modern technologies which have some advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages of solar energy are that the main source of this energy was sun which is clear, natural, continuous, renewable and inexpensive source of energy. However,  the initial cost of building system of solar energy which need large area for installing system are some of disadvantages. Although solar cells are long lasting sources of energy which can almost anywhere and offer more advantages over other renewable sources such as wind  energy which are noisy, expensive and more liable to breaking down, the silicon used in these cells is very expensive. In spite of the method of using solar energy doesn’t expel fuel, waste or pollution, the air pollution and weather may have large effect on the efficiency of the solar cells which affect in the efficiency of the amount of energy it may generate.

Largest company of solar power plants construction:

Abengoa Solar a subsidiary of Abengoa. Its primary activities include the designing, promotion, financing attainment, construction and operation of solar power stations that use photovoltaic, concentrated photovoltaic, or concentrated solar thermal technologies. It is one of the largest company specialized in developing Photovoltaic, Concentrated solar panels and industrial heat technologies commercial and industrial applications. The company focus on the construction of solar power plants to generate electricity such as tower, trough, photovoltaic. The company built one of most famous and largest solar plant in the world.

Solana solar plant is one of the world’s largest solar power plant in United State of America. The project started with an agreement between Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service which is the largest electric company in Arizona. The project type is CPS Trough Plant with storage and will be installed about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix near to Gila Bend. The power output capacity will be 250 MW to generate electricity to power more than 70,000 homes which will eliminate approximately 475,000 tons of Carbon dioxide. The cost of this project will cost around 2 billion, and the White House will loan Abengoa Solar 1.45 billion in order to support the construction of Solana.

The Olmedilla photovoltaic park is one of the largest photovoltaic plant in the world which located in Olmedilla de Alarcon in Spain. It was completed built in September 2008 and used more than 160,000 solar photovoltaic panels to generate 60-85 MW. It produces enough electricity to power more than 40,000 homes on sunny day. The type of solar panels used in this project were flat panel conventional PV which made with silicon and tend. The entire plant was completed in 15 months by using 270,000 photovoltaic modules.

 

In other hand, Abengoa Solar and Total signed an agreement with Masdar city as joint venture to build one of the largest solar power plant in the middle east which is Shams 1. The project type is parabolic trough technology which located in Madinat Zayed, Abudhabi, about 120 km west of United Arab Emirates. the construction started in 2010, the power output capacity will be 100 MW which will cost $700 million and will be completed in the third quarter of 2012. Masdar city will own 60% of Shams 1 project and the other 40% will be owned by Abengoa and Total. In addition to that, Masdar City plan to built other plant which will be named Sham 2, Sham 3 and Noor1.

Noor 1 photovoltaic solar power plant will be located in the east of Alain, Abudhabi, United Arab Emirates. the installed capacity will be same as Shams 1 project which will be around 100 MW. The type will be used in this project is photovoltaic technology which is lower prices compared to the parabolic trough technology. Also, the construction of Noor 1 plant will cost less than Shams1 and will be completed in the third quarter of 2013.

 

Recommendation & Conclusion:

Arab countries must assume policies in order to increase the usage of renewable energy. It could be based on successful existing successful policies followed in other countries. The design of commercial, industrial and residential buildings is encouraged to be based on energy conservation, efficiency and sustainability. Building Integrated Photovoltaic. Researches on renewable energy technologies especially solar energy  has to be increased in most of Arab universities by covering energy conservation, efficiency and economy. All of that, help to improve the using and understanding the sources of solar energy.

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