Abstract
Solar energy as well as biomass energy techniques suffers from disadvantages, which in some cases limit their potential for substituting fossil fuels. For instance, solar energy is difficult to store, and many kinds of biomass are not suited for combustion, in spite of the fact that they have high energy contents. We describe and industrial size system, which has the goal of overcoming some of these limitations by combining solar- and biomass power. This is achieved by roasting residual biomass by means of hot air provided by solar power only. The solar power is collected by three “Linear Mirror” solar concentrator, they are designed to achieve high efficiency also at northern latitudes. Each one is equipped with an innovative solar-air heat exchanger. The hot air is delivered to a roasting device filled with humid residual biomass. We report the performance of this system from a first commissioning run. The system is intended to help create a closed-cycle economy by means of transforming waste biomasses to a high-quality combustible.
Highlights
Over the last years, there has been a strong increase in the use of solar energy for electricity production [1], while instead its use to provide thermal power is still quite low [2]
We describe and industrial size system, which has the goal of overcoming some of these limitations by combining solar- and biomass power. This is achieved by roasting residual biomass by means of hot air provided by solar power only
The hot air is delivered to a roasting device filled with humid residual biomass
Summary
There has been a strong increase in the use of solar energy for electricity production [1], while instead its use to provide thermal power is still quite low [2]. This is true for the elevated temperatures, which are required for industrial processes (typically > 100 ̊C). This is in part due to the fact that for concentrated solar plants, usually para-
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
