Energy Biz - March/April 2008 - (Page 70) » TEChNOlOGy FRONTIER The power of Molten Salt booSTInG SoLar by SaLvaTore SaLamone sAlt might just Be the key SolarReserve is a new venture created by Hamilton Sundstrand subsidiary United Technologies Corp. and the private equity funds company US Renewables Group. The technology the company plans to develop comes from Rocketdyne, which UTC acquired in 2005. Rocketdyne has about 20 years’ experience in this field and its power tower and molten salt technology is currently used in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Two project in Barstow, Calif. SolarReserve’s idea is to develop a commercial, utility-scale concentrated solar power plant that uses motor-controlled mirrors to focus the sun’s energy on a central tower containing molten salt. The heated salt would be used by steam turbines to produce a peak power of 500 megawatts. The use of molten salt in solar plants is not new. The technology has been known for many years. And molten salt heat storage technology has been deployed in some ingredient to make commercial solar thermal plants more practical and economically viable. SolarReserve recently was formed to commercialize solar power technology using molten salt storage systems to get around solar’s biggest shortcoming. Power generation diminishes greatly at night or when it is cloudy. Molten salt has a much higher heat capacity than water, so it can store more heat in a given volume. And it retains heat longer. These properties have some benefits for solar power plants. Molten salt in tanks can be heated to 1,000 degrees. The heated salt mixture can be used to create steam to drive turbines that produce electricity. A molten salt tank can also be used as the equivalent of a heat capacitor or battery, storing heat until needed. In this scenario, heat can be stored in a tank and used at night or during a cloudy period to sustain the generation of electricity. TECH FRONTIER Gatherings www.energycentral.com/events To view any of these events, please go to www.energycentral.com/ ) into the quick link box. quicklink and type the quick link code ( APRIL 1-2 Smart Metering – Central & Eastern Europe 4-5 11-12 19-23 22-24 MAY 6-9 6-8 11-15 11-16 20-22 | | POWER-GEN India & Central Asia | MIT Energy Conference | Annual Metering, Billing/CIS America | Metering China Conference & Exhibition Prague, Czech Republic New Delhi, India Cambridge, Mass. San Diego Zhuhai, China New Orleans E17607 E17410 E17423 E17638 E17220 | Industrial Energy Technology Conference & Workshops | Electric Power Expo | International Conference on Nuclear Engineering | IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists | GridWise Expo E17968 Baltimore E17777 Orlando, Fla. E17464 San Diego E17365 Santa Clara, Calif. E17868 70 E n E rgyB i z March/April 2008 http://www.energycentral.com/events http://www.energycentral.com/
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