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Monday, June 16th, 2014

World First: Australian Solar Plant has Generated ‘Supercritical” Steam That Rivals Fossil Fuels’

Author:    
Source:     Science Alert
Publication Date:     Thursday, 05 June 2014
 Link: World First: Australian Solar Plant has Generated ‘Supercritical” Steam That Rivals Fossil Fuels’
Stephan:   Here is some very good news. It is wonderful to watch the speed with which solar technology is advancing, now that it is getting decent funding. This is exciting news about the trend of transitioning out of the carbon energy age. I find stories like these also very poignant because if we had started seriously focusing on non-carbon energy in the 70s, when President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House, imagine where we would be today. How much pain we would have saved ourselves. But profit was and remains for a critical mass more important than wellness. Click through to see the very useful diagrams and the video or the facility in operation.

A solar thermal test plant in Newcastle, Australia, has generated ‘supercritical” steam at a pressure of 23.5 mpa (3400 psi) and 570°C (1,058°F).

CSIRO is claiming it as a world record, and it’s a HUGE step for solar thermal energy.

“It’s like breaking the sound barrier; this step change proves solar has the potential to compete with the peak performance capabilities of fossil fuel sources,” Dr Alex Wonhas, CSIRO’s Energy Director, told Colin Jeffrey for Gizmag.

The Energy Centre uses a field of more than 600 mirrors (known as heliostats) which are all directed at two towers housing solar receivers and turbines, Gizmag reports.

This supercritical steam is used to drive the world’s most advanced power plant turbines, but previously it’s only been possible to produce it by burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas.

“Instead of relying on burning fossil fuels to produce supercritical steam, this breakthrough demonstrates that the power plants of the future could instead be using the free, zero emission energy of the sun to achieve the same result,” Dr Wonhas explained.

Currently, commercial solar thermal or concentrating solar power power plants only operate a ‘subcritical” levels, using less pressurised steam. This means that they’ve never been able to match […]

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