What is meant by sensible and latent heat storage?

Sensible heat storage

Sensible heat storage materials undergo no change in phase over the temperature range
encountered in the storage process, and store thermal energy by sensible heat in solid or liquid
materials.
Solid materials, like concrete and cast able ceramics have low price and good thermal conductivities.
Concerning liquid materials, a variety of fluids have been tested to transport the heat, including water,
air, oil, and sodium, before molten salts were selected as best. Water remains the most widely used
material in sensible heat storage systems with best compromise between cost, heat storage capacity,
density and environmental impact.

Latent heat storage

Latent heat storage stores heat in a storage medium in the form of potential energy between the
particles of the substance. The conversion between the heat and the potential energy within the
substance involves a phase change – thus heat storage occurs without significant temperature
changes in the storage medium. The capacity of latent heat storage can be determined by the
following:
Q=mγ , where γ is latent heat in kJ/kg. The thermal storage density of the storage medium can
be expressed as below,
QV=ργ
Since the latent heat of a substance is much greater than the specific heat of the same substance, latent
heat storage can store the same amount of heat in a much smaller volume. This is a significant
advantage of latent heat storage systems.

What is the limitation of solar thermal energy?

Limitations of solar thermal energy are-

1. High Costs
2. Future Technology has a high probability of making CSP(concentrated solar power)
Obsolete
3. Water Issue
4. Ecological and Cultural Issues
5. Limited Locations and Size Limitations
6. Long Gestation Time Leading to Cost Overruns
7. Financing

Enlist the advantages of flat plate collectors.

Advantages of Flat Plate Collector are as under:

1. Absorb direct, diffuse and reflected components o solar radiation,

2. They are fixed in slant and orientation, and thus, there is no need for tracking the Sun,
3. They are easy to make. Also, they are low in cost,
4. Have comparatively low maintenance cost and Long lie.
5. Operate at relatively high efficiency.
What are the five main components of flat plate collectors?

The flat-plate solar collectors are probably the most fundamental and most studied technology for solar-
powered domestic hot water systems. The overall idea behind this technology is pretty simple. The Sun
heats a dark flat surface, which collects as much energy as possible, and then the energy is transferred
to water, air, or other fluid for further use.

These are the main components of a typical flat-plate solar collector:

 Black surface - absorbent of the incident solar energy.

 Glazing cover - a transparent layer that transmits radiation to the absorber, but prevents
radiative and convective heat loss from the surface.
 Tubes containing heating fluid to transfer the heat from the collector.
 Insulation covering sides and bottom of the collector to reduce heat losses.
 Support structure to protect the components and hold them in place.

Distinguish between global radiation and diffuse radiation.

How can thermal energy be stored?
Solar energy can be stored as electrical, chemical mechanical or chemical energy. Solar thermal
storage (STS) refers to the accumulation of energy collected by a given solar field for its later
use. STS technologies are installed to provide the solar plant with partial or full dispatch
ability, so that the plant output does not depend strictly in time on the input, i.e., the solar
irradiation. STSs are TES (Thermal Energy Storage) systems where the source of heat is
provided by the solar field, capturing the excess of energy not directly converted into power or
other useful utility. As such, most TES technologies known can be adapted and have been
adopted in solar applications, in particular for power production. Thermal energy is stored in
following:
1. Water Storage
2. Packed Bed Storage
3. Phase- change Storage

What is a Solar constant? Draw a diagram showing direct, diffuse and total radiations.
A solar constant is a measurement of the solar electromagnetic radiation available in a meter squared at
Earth's distance from the sun. The solar constant is used to quantify the rate at which energy is received
upon a unit surface such as a solar panel. In this context, the solar constant provides a total
measurement of the sun's radiant energy as it is absorbed at a given point.
Total radiation- sum of direct and diffuse

What do you mean by concentrating and non-concentrating collectors?

Concentrating collector comprises a receiver, where the radiation is absorbed and converted to some
other energy form, and a concentrator, which is the optical system that directs beam radiation onto the
receiver

A solar collector that uses reflective surfaces to concentrate sunlight onto a small area, where it is
absorbed and converted to heat or, in the case of solar photovoltaic (PV) devices, into electricity.
Concentrators can increase the power flux of sunlight hundreds of times. The principal types of
concentrating collectors include: compound parabolic, parabolic trough, fixed reflector moving
receiver, fixed receiver moving reflector, Fresnel lens, and central receiver. A PV concentrating module
uses optical elements (Fresnel lens) to increase the amount of sunlight incident onto a PV cell.
Concentrating PV modules/arrays track the sun and use concentrating devices to reflect direct sunlight
onto the solar cell to produce electricity directly.

Non concentrating collectors have the surface area which absorbs the heat from the sun and transfer
it to the working fluid. In Non-Concentrating type collectors, the area collecting the solar energy is the
same as the area absorbing the solar radiation. They are also known as flat plate collectors.

Explain with suitable figure solar central receiver power plant.

Solar central receiver (SCR) systems are considered to be a promising technology for solar
radiation collection and conversion into high-temperature thermal energy for electricity production
and chemical processing.
Central receiver (or power tower) systems use a field of distributed mirrors – heliostats – that
individually track the sun and focus the sunlight on the top of a tower. By concentrating the sunlight
600–1000 times, they achieve temperatures from 800°C to well over 1000°C. The solar energy is
absorbed by a working fluid and then used to generate steam to power a conventional turbine. In
over 15 years of experiments worldwide, power tower plants have proven to be technically feasible
in projects using different heat transfer media (steam, air and molten salts) in the thermal cycle and
with different heliostat designs.
The high temperatures available in solar towers can be used not only to drive steam cycles, but also
for gas turbines and combined cycle systems. Such systems can achieve up to 35% peak and 25%
annual solar electric efficiency when coupled to a combined cycle power plant
The efficiency of these plants is usually better than Parabolic Trough plants, because fluid
temperatures are higher – around 550°C. This leads to better thermodynamic performance and it
also facilitates storage: smaller volumes are possible because of the higher temperature difference
between the cold and the hot tanks.

Solar Central Receiver)

Draw and explain solar pond.

A solar pond is a solar energy collector, generally fairly large in size, which looks like a pond. This type of
solar energy collector uses a large, salty lake as a kind of a flat plate collector that absorbs and stores
energy from the Sun in the warm, lower layers of the pond. as below figure-

What are the different types of solar thermal power plants?

Solar thermal power plants are electricity generation plants that utilize energy from the Sun to heat a
fluid to a high temperature. This fluid then transfers its heat to water, which then becomes
superheated steam. This steam is then used to turn turbines in a power plant, and this mechanical
energy is converted into electricity by a generator. This type of generation is essentially the same as
electricity generation that uses fossil fuels, but instead heats steam using sunlight instead
of combustion of fossil fuels. These systems use solar collectors to concentrate the Sun's rays on one
point to achieve appropriately high temperatures. Despite the fact that there are several different
types of solar thermal power plants, they are all the same in that they utilize mirrors to reflect
and concentrate sunlight on a point. At this point the solar energy is collected and converted to
heat energy, which creates steam and runs a generator. This creates electricity.
1.Parabolic Troughs
2.Parabolic Dishes
3. Solar Towers