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You could incorporate this idea into The SHPEGS concept.

The SHPEGS (Shit-Hot Power or Electricity Generation System) project "just works".

OTOH, another moderator gave to the first answer to that trollish comment a (Score:-1, Flamebait) because it gave information on some shortcomings of the SHPEGS concept.

Well, let's just hope I get some of those dumbasses in meta-moderation...

For a solar tower you..

I wonder how this would be for growing winter crops as well

The thermal storage would be deep enough to not interact with the surface or shallow groundwater. The Drake Landing project has some information. This is another research document on thermal storage.

There is a lot of potential for integrating bio-methane which requires a very constant temperature as well as this Solar Hydrogen from methane production system. Algae farming also has a potential integration with the solar thermal storage.

Thanks. I'm looking for a number though.

I don't mean to avoid the efficiency question. Again, in an arid location with the majority of electrical usage for AC, Solar PV or Solar Thermal is simpler and probably more suitable. The cost/m2 of collectors is substantially cheaper in a thermal system, so I'm not sure what you are comparing. Marginal and poor land that isn't suitable for crop production or the roof of a Walmart isn't the cost factor, the solar collector is. The MIT group was able to get 1kW from 14m2 of trough collectors on a straight thermal system and the SHPEGS additions should improve on that.

There are also 2 heat sources in the SHPEGS system, solar and hot summer air along with two power generation systems, thermal and the wind turbine. In theory, the absorption system should improve not degrade the straight solar thermal system, so I would expect something better than 10% efficiency on the solar portion if you include the additional heat from the air. The conversion efficiency of the heat being extracted from the air is difficult to calculate. The energy cost is the energy going into the solution pump to pressurize the aqueous ammonia and there isn't the same direct cost in the volume of air being moved, in fact the more air that is moved the better the output of the wind turbine portion.

If you are comparing Solar PV, you need to account for battery cost and cut all the numbers by at least 50% to account for the daytime only output. Regardless of what is used for electrical storage, there are 3 months of the winter in Canada and the northern US where Solar PV isn't going to put out anything substantial and seasonal electrical storage isn't feasible.

It's fractional distillation and the heat is recovered from both the water and the ammonia. This is a good document on GAX Absorption Heat Pumps and the wikipedia Gas Absorption Refrigerator entry.

The step-by-step detail PDF outlines what is happening in the SHPEGS cycle along with the Flow Animation.

Ammonia/water is also not the only possible working pair, but it is commonly used in heat pumps and Industrial Heat Transformers and was used in the system to simplify explaining the concepts. A commercial absorption heat pump powered by a geothermal source with images and diagrams.

It's fractional distillation and the heat is recovered from both the water and the ammonia. This is a good document on GAX Absorption Heat Pumps and the wikipedia Gas Absorption Refrigerator entry.

The step-by-step detail PDF outlines what is happening in the SHPEGS cycle along with the Flow Animation.

Ammonia/water is also not the only possible working pair, but it is commonly used in heat pumps and Industrial Heat Transformers and was used in the system to simplify explaining the concepts. A commercial absorption heat pump powered by a geothermal source with images and diagrams.

The SEGS plants at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert have been operating since the 1980's and are the largest solar plants in the world producing 354 MW.

Nevada Solar One is 64MW of solar thermal (3rd largest solar plant) and set to come online this year.

Stirling Energy Systems has a CPUC approved contract with SCE for a 500MW parabolic stirling solar thermal plant.

This document details a lot of the 100 year history of solar thermal attempts.

SHPEGS is our not-for-profit design project to adapt solar thermal to moderate climates by combining it with geothermal and heat pump technology. There is more information and links here.

The SEGS plants at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert have been operating since the 1980's and are the largest solar plants in the world producing 354 MW.

Nevada Solar One is 64MW of solar thermal (3rd largest solar plant) and set to come online this year.

Stirling Energy Systems has a CPUC approved contract with SCE for a 500MW parabolic stirling solar thermal plant.

This document details a lot of the 100 year history of solar thermal attempts.

SHPEGS is our not-for-profit design project to adapt solar thermal to moderate climates by combining it with geothermal and heat pump technology. There is more information and links here.

Diagram of Compressed Air Storage Idea

They estimated 22 years to reclaim the investment at $0.42/kWh under Ontario's Standard Offer Program. Which is allowing $0.42/kWh for PV and $0.11 for all other renewable systems.

You can watch the live output stats (requires flash) of the Exibition Palace 100kWh installation in Toronto and see historical data.

The system has been online since last August and they should have a much better month this June, but the 100kW Solar PV installation poorest functional month was 1.8MWh (January) and best was 9MWh so far. At the $0.42/kWh this translates to $756-$3780 per month or 24-121 years to reclaim the investment. At $0.11/kWh this is $198-$990/month or 92-462 years to break even on the investment.

I would think the real annual output will land in the center and at the $0.42/kWh rate, they will reclaim the $1.1 million in around 40 years if the panels output doesn't degrade severely through that period.

In higher annual insolation areas like California and Hawaii with peak electrical usage due to AC, solar PV is getting better for low-maintenance installations like a Walmart or Google roof, when the PR factor is taken into account, but in Canada, it's a long way off from feasible due to the low winter insolation and "Twin Peaks" electrical load with the highest peak in February when solar PV has no real output.

SHPEGS is our attempt to design a more suitable renewable power system for Canada, Northern US and Europe.

• The 40MW press release would be the largest Solar PV plant, but the Solar Thermal at Kramer Junction is 354MW and has been operating for over 20 years along with the other SEGS style systems. Nevada Solar One is 64MW and will be completed soon.
• Solar Thermal Electric Generation was not included in the $0.42/kWh (only Solar PV), any solar thermal or hybrid installations under this program would only be eligible for the $0.11/kWh and the rules have several wordings around hybrid systems that make it unclear whether a solar thermal/geothermal hybrid would even qualify at all
• After some more looking and reading the rules, they have blatantly advertised 40MW to claim "The Biggest" and get mediots to post their press release and create hype for their company, but the rules are clear on a 10MW limit.
• OptiSolar doesn't actually have a commercial thin film PV product yet, but they have been hiring.

but Bucky Fuller said it best:

• This program was intended for small power producers with a limit of 10MW. The 40MW is a press release to claim "The Biggest" and supposed to be built in 10MW stages. According to the rules there is a hard limit at 10MW. The $0.42/kWh was intended to provide a Solar PV cost study and these guys are trying to bend the rules to take advantage of the program. The 40MW will be difficult to do without getting a rule change.
• The solar insolation in Sarnia is very low for 6 months of the year and non-existent at winter solstice with 8 hours of low angle daylight. Canada has 2 peaks in electrical usage (August and February) as opposed to a warmer climate with a single summer peak. In February there is no real output from a Solar PV panel and the EROEI of Solar PV in this location is 50% of locating the same panel in the Mojave desert. They would have to pick up the solar field every fall and snowbird it to Arizona for the winter for it to put out any power.
• Solar Insolation at Sarnia in kWh/m2 on a 43degree panel (from above nasa link):
  Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. avg.
  1.89 2.67 3.30 4.21 4.92 5.16 5.19 4.85 4.21 3.18 1.97 1.60 3.60
• The 40MW is peak output at noon on summer solstice. The plant is going to produce a lot less output for the rest of the year. They should rate output of intermittent power in MWh/day average and not in MW. MW makes sense for a coal or nuclear plant where the output is constant.

The SHPEGS project is an open renewable design project that is attempting to take advantage of the Canadian climate that has high summer solar insolation and cold winter temperatures and provide base-load renewable electricity and thermal storage from a direct/indirect hybrid solar collection system built with common materials.

This could make a great historical demonstration of Ben Franklin's lightning/kite experiment when lightning "improves" the efficiency of the system by finding the shortest path to ground by dropping 500MW for 1 sec down a 40MW cable. (Don't touch the key hanging on the end). The instant heating to 28,000C might also cause a few issues. Lightning can be formed in man circumstances, so watching out for cumulo nimbus clouds and pulling down the system isn't a sure bet.

The only thing I could find on lightning in their information was in the pdf:

"Generator and tether performance depend on a good lightning storm detection system. Surge protection schemes and hardening of the control systems are also under examination."

I am a proponent of Open, Renewable and Baseload Reliable systems.

This could make a great historical demonstration of Ben Franklin's lightning/kite experiment when lightning "improves" the efficiency of the system by finding the shortest path to ground by dropping 500MW for 1 sec down a 40MW cable. (Don't touch the key hanging on the end). The instant heating to 28,000C might also cause a few issues. Lightning can be formed in man circumstances, so watching out for cumulo nimbus clouds and pulling down the system isn't a sure bet.

The only thing I could find on lightning in their information was in the pdf:

"Generator and tether performance depend on a good lightning storm detection system. Surge protection schemes and hardening of the control systems are also under examination."

I am a proponent of Open, Renewable and Baseload Reliable systems.

This could make a great historical demonstration of Ben Franklin's lightning/kite experiment when lightning "improves" the efficiency of the system by finding the shortest path to ground by dropping 500MW for 1 sec down a 40MW cable. (Don't touch the key hanging on the end). The instant heating to 28,000C might also cause a few issues. Lightning can be formed in man circumstances, so watching out for cumulo nimbus clouds and pulling down the system isn't a sure bet.

The only thing I could find on lightning in their information was in the pdf:

"Generator and tether performance depend on a good lightning storm detection system. Surge protection schemes and hardening of the control systems are also under examination."

I am a proponent of Open, Renewable and Baseload Reliable systems.

Subsidies offset the economics of Solar PV, but not the EROEI.

An essay on evaluating renewable energy systems.

How SHPEGS works.

How SHPEGS works.

How SHPEGS works.

The SHPEGS project is an initiative to design and build a system that uses a combination of direct and indirect solar collection to generate electricity and store thermal energy in an economical, environmentally friendly, scalable, reliable, efficient and location independent manner using common construction materials.

My predisposed opinion is that if you take the time to evaluate the possibilities, solar thermal electrical generation systems built from common materials supplemented with 10-20% wind turbines have the best potential for feasible scalability.

The main design criteria for a massively scalable system has to be availability of materials, location independence and base load reliability. Energy transport media like bio-fuels have short term ease of implementation, but the very low solar conversion efficiency, cost of processing plants and availability and logistics of input media as well as the low efficiency of internal combustion engines don't make them a long term scalable solution. Nuclear suffers from NIMBY and uranium has availability constraints (and just took a 40% price jump). New hydroelectric is very limited in North America. Any of the biomass ideas are useful if the input media is being discarded, but there isn't a scalable biomass source that comes anywhere close to meeting energy demands.

Reliable, IP free, Location Independent Solar Thermal Power Generation.

My predisposed opinion is that if you take the time to evaluate the possibilities, solar thermal electrical generation systems built from common materials supplemented with 10-20% wind turbines have the best potential for feasible scalability.

The main design criteria for a massively scalable system has to be availability of materials, location independence and base load reliability. Energy transport media like bio-fuels have short term ease of implementation, but the very low solar conversion efficiency, cost of processing plants and availability and logistics of input media as well as the low efficiency of internal combustion engines don't make them a long term scalable solution. Nuclear suffers from NIMBY and uranium has availability constraints (and just took a 40% price jump). New hydroelectric is very limited in North America. Any of the biomass ideas are useful if the input media is being discarded, but there isn't a scalable biomass source that comes anywhere close to meeting energy demands.

Reliable, IP free, Location Independent Solar Thermal Power Generation.

My predisposed opinion is that if you take the time to evaluate the possibilities, solar thermal electrical generation systems built from common materials supplemented with 10-20% wind turbines have the best potential for feasible scalability.

The main design criteria for a massively scalable system has to be availability of materials, location independence and base load reliability. Energy transport media like bio-fuels have short term ease of implementation, but the very low solar conversion efficiency, cost of processing plants and availability and logistics of input media as well as the low efficiency of internal combustion engines don't make them a long term scalable solution. Nuclear suffers from NIMBY and uranium has availability constraints (and just took a 40% price jump). New hydroelectric is very limited in North America. Any of the biomass ideas are useful if the input media is being discarded, but there isn't a scalable biomass source that comes anywhere close to meeting energy demands.

Reliable, IP free, Location Independent Solar Thermal Power Generation.

Does anyone believe that we can continue to use fossil fuels like we have over the past century until the end of time? Does it matter exactly when or why we cut down or quit using them? We need to quit discussing the theories and symptoms and concentrate on developing renewable and clean energy sources.

I wrote an essay that I think objectively gives the reader some tools to evaluate renewable energy systems.