"What Is Solar Power & The Energy Storage Methods Available?"

So lets start off by asking the question, "What is Solar Power Energy?" In answer to that question, solar power is the earths most available energy source. It is capable of providing many times the total current energy demand.

There are a number of power plants available. Perhaps the largest solar power plant is the 354 MW SEGS. This plant concentrates on solar thermal. However in more recent times, multi-megawatt photovoltaic plants are now being constructed! The 46MW moura photovoltaic power station in Portugal was completed in 2008. Then there is the 40 MW Waldpolenz solar park in Germany which is a larger photovoltaic power station.

There are even bigger solar power plants being proposed such as the 550 MW Topaz solar farm and the 600 MW Rancho Cielo Solar Farm. It is said that if we covered at least 4% of the world's desert area with photovoltaics, we could supply all of the worlds electricity. The Gobi Desert in mongola by itself would deliever almost all of the worlds energy demand.

What else can you say about Solar Power?

Well, Solar Power is a predictable intermittent energy source. What does this mean exactly? Whilst solar power is not available at all times, it is possible to predict when energy will not be available. There are a number of technologies that actually have the potential to eliminate the intermittency of solar power, by storing spare solar power in the form of heat. With the heating in a storage facility, it is then possible to use this heat overnight during times when solar power is not available to produce electricity, mainly because of the sunshine is obselete at that time of day.

Thankfully, this type of technology has the potential to make solar power dispatchable, because the heat source can be used to generate electricity whenever you need it.

What About Storage Methods....

Well as you know... solar energy is not something that can be produced at night. So its important to make energy storage a critical issue so that it can provide the continous availbility of energy. You see both solar power and wind power are both intermittent energy sources. Wind and solar power do tend to be somewhat complementary. What do we mean by this? Well... there tends to be more wind in the winter and more sun in the summer, but on days where there is no sun and no wind... then you have a problem! There needs to be a difference made up to facilitate the loss. Infact, the institute for solar energy supply technology of the university of Kassel pilot tested a combined power plant linking solar power, wind power bio-gas and hydrostorage to provide energy you could consume around the clock. This of course, was entirely made up of renewable sources.

Thankfully, it is possible for Solar energy to be stored at high temperatures using molten salts. These Salts are an effective storage medium because they are A) low-cost, B) have a high specific heat capacity and C) can deliver heat at temperatures compatible with conventional power systems.

The Solar Two used this method of energy storage, allowing it to store enough heat in its 68 m3 storage tank to provide full output of 10 MWe for about 40 minutes, with an efficiency of about 99%