Renewable Energy Sources

INTRODUCTION TO NON-CONVENTIONAL ENERGY SOURCES

Prepared by: Mohammad Amin Amin

23/09/2013
 Introduction to solar energy

 Solar based technologies for electricity production

 Solar energy potential in Afghanistan

 Applications
 It is a sphere diameter of 1.39×106 km with a distance
of 1.49×108 km from the earth
 350 billion tone of its mass is daily converted to energy
via nuclear fusion
 Surface temperature 5762 °K and internal temperature
of 8×106 °K - 40×106 °K
 Energy flow has already been discussed
 The output of sun is 2.8×1023kW.
 The energy reaching the earth is 1.5×1018kWh/year.
 When light travels from outer space to earth, solar energy is lost
because of following reasons:
 Scattering: The rays collide with particles present in atmosphere
 Absorption: Because of water vapour there is absorption
 Cloud cover: The light rays are diffused because of clouds.
 Reflection: When the light rays hit the mountains present on the earth
surface there is reflection.
 Climate: Latitude of the location, day (time in the year) also affects the
amount of solar energy received by the place.
 Solar

Photovoltaic (PV) Solar Thermal

Parabolic trough Central receiver Parabolic dish Solar Pond Solar chimney
Crystalline cells Thin-Film cells (tower)

Mono-crystalline silicon Poly-crystalline silicon Amorphous Cadmium Copper indium

cells cells silicon cells telluride cells diselenide cells
η=15-18% η=13-16% η=5-8% η=6-9% η=7.5-9.5%
Expensive to produce Cheaper to produce

Classification of solar based technologies for electricity production

 300 days of sunshine per year

 6.5 kWh/m2/day of theoretical solar energy density

 Technologies can be used

◦ PV

◦ Solar thermal

 From technical point of view:

◦ Off grid micro grids for residential and industrial customers

◦ Potentially large solar plants connected to the grid

 Has there been any evidence of any kind of plans to
deploy large solar plants?
 National Solidarity Program (NSP) plan for rural
electrification.
◦ 2000 individual projects would be implemented mostly for
producing electricity for lighting in some schools, hospitals,
police buildings, mosques, and some residential areas in the
villages.
◦ The technology used has been installing more than 100,000 PV
systems mostly of less than 50 Wp capacity.
Afghanistan solar energy density (kW/m2/day) 10-km resolution
annual map for PV (Source: NREL Website)
 Now if only 2 % of the total land (650, 000 km2) is used
considering 300 sun shining days, 12 hour per day, and
average 6.5 kWh/m2/day energy density, then the
maximum theoretical input potential would be:
6.5 𝑘𝑊ℎ × 13000 × 106 𝑚2
𝑃𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 2
= 23.472 𝐺𝑊
3600ℎ × 𝑚
 That shows a huge capacity which if poly-crystalline silicon
PV cells of 16% efficiency is used for conversion, then it
will produce 3,755.52 MW electric power. That is still a
huge capacity which can satisfy a large portion of the
demand.
 Solar heating

 Solar Distillation/De –salination

 Solar Air conditioning

Water heating
 Water heating is required in most countries of the world for both domestic and commercial use.

 The simplest solar water heater is a piece of black plastic pipe, filled with water, and laid in the

sun for the water to heat up.

 Simple solar water heaters usually comprise a series of pipes, which are painted black, sitting

inside an insulated box fronted with a glass panel. This is known as a solar collector.

 The fluid to be heated passes through the collector and into a tank for storage.

 The fluid can be cycled through the tank several times to raise the heat of the fluid to the required

temperature.
 The thermo-syphon system makes use of the natural tendency of
hot water to rise above cold water.
 The tank in such a system is always placed above the top of the collector and
as water is heated in the collector it rises and is replaced by cold water from
the bottom of the tank.
 This cycle will continue until the temperature of the water in the tank is equal
to that of the panel.
 A one-way valve is usually fitted in the system to prevent the reverse
occurring at night when the temperature drops.
 As hot water is drawn off for use, fresh cold water is fed into the system from
the mains.
 As most solar collectors are fitted on the roofs of houses, this system is not
always convenient, as it is difficult to site the tank above the collector, in
which case the system will need a pump to circulate the water.
 Pumped solar water heaters use a pumping device to drive the water through
the collector.

 The advantage of this system is that the storage tank can be sited below the
collector.
 The disadvantage of course is that electricity is required to drive the pump.
 Often the fluid circulating in the collector will be treated with an anti-
corrosive and /or anti-freeze chemical.
 In this case a heat exchanger is required to transfer the heat to the consumers
hot water supply.
A double-cycle system with forced circulation with a conventional boiler for back-up
 A domestic installation comprising 4m2 collection area can
provide between 50% and 70% of the hot water requirement
for a typical home.
 If an entire housing estate should be fitted with solar systems,
one solution is a solar district heating system (see Figure).
 The collectors are either distributed on the houses, or replaced
by a large, central solar collector.
 The collectors then heat up a big central storage tank,
from which much of the heat is distributed back to the
houses.
 The surface-to-volume ratio of a central storage tank is
much better than that for distributed storage systems, so
the storage losses are much lower, and even permit
seasonal heat storage.
 Solar district heating is also an option if room heating is to
be covered by solar energy.
A solar district heating system
 The most cost-effective way to install a solar geyser is to integrate the collector
assembly, cold-water supply and piping with the design of a new house under
construction.
 Solar geysers can easily be installed in group houses and apartments, especially
during construction, if adequate provisions are made for piping, collector
assembly and cold-water supply.
 Proper load matching is required to ensure that the capacity of the system
installed is optimized to meet the daily hot water needs of the end-user.
 Current prices of domestic SWHs are around Rest. 20,000 for a 100 litres per
day system.