A Realistic Growth Path for Solar Wind Power

Abstract

Until today, the biggest solar updraft tower power plant ever built and tested was the 50 kW Spain plant in Manzanares. Since then no real plant has been built, whilst many grand plans have been drawn and given up. Solar Wind Power (SWP) is an energy form in search of its destiny: it is time to find a real market for SWP. This market is currently forming and we call it ‘evening power’. SWP transforms sunlight into heat, heat into hot artificial wind, and this wind into electricity. The three steps of transformation allow SWP to delay the generation of electricity from the daily peak of solar radiation into the evening. In the evening, the greater power demand cannot be met with other renewable CO2-free energies like wind and photovoltaic. SWP has been tested once, thirty years ago - it is time for a second trial: the Intermediate Solar Wind Power Plant (ISWiPP). The goal is to develop, test and measure SWP’s potential for heat-storage and evening power output. The technology for constructing a light steel-tower with a concrete base will be tested under real-life conditions and technologies for heat storage will be developed. The ISWiPP will enable investors to prepare for large SWiPP with hybrid (concrete and steel) towers of 1000 m height or more. This development growth path is realistic and adequate to overcome the current impasse. Like all CO2-free energy forms SWP depends very much on the location chosen. Locations with strong winds, or sand- and dust-storms, are inadequate for SWP. A good location for a SWiPP is a hot, flat and rocky desert, not too far from a city with a demand for evening power.