Solar energy is one of the most abundant renewable sources of energy on the planet, and its use to produce electricity has become one of the most promising solutions to face the climate crisis and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
But this type of energy has its drawbacks, and one of the biggest is that the sun only shines during the day. The great challenge is being able to store that generated energy and be able to use it during hours of low or no solar radiation.
One of the most promising technologies is to use solar mirrors to concentrate solar radiation at a focal point, and there is placed a material capable of absorbing heat and storing it in the form of thermal energy.
That material is usually made up of molten salts that are heated and maintain the temperature for a long time, and that heat generates water vapor that drives a turbine and which in turn generates electricity.
The advantage of these salts is that they store heat for many hours, and therefore these systems can continue to generate electricity when there is no more sun. Consequently, the generation of electrical energy is very close to 24 hours, eliminating the major drawback of solar energy generation.
One of the advantages of solar mirror thermal energy storage is that it can provide much higher storage capacity than conventional batteries. Batteries can be very effective for the storage of electrical energy on a small scale and in short periods of time, but their storage capacity is limited and their cost per Kw. is much higher than that of these energy storage technologies.
And furthermore, thermal energy storage with solar mirrors can provide long-term storage capacity of hundreds of megawatt-hours at a much lower cost.
There are a few facilities already built around the world and more and more are being built due to their reliability (they are quite simple) and their economic profitability. The energy obtained in this way is one of the cheapest, and is below photovoltaic solar and wind power.
This is a type of energy to be used for periods of about 24 hours, and can be very well complemented with energy from batteries that generally last less than 4 hours. and are more expensive.
This is a hot topic today, there are already more than 100 plants of this type that generate more than 7 Gw. of energy and it seems that they will continue to increase.
And you can see a very interesting video at: https://youtu.be/dFKXGmV_DDE
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