Clean power and water for remote island communities

Most of the renewable energy projects that are currently set up around the world are grid connected with feed-in power tariff arrangement. People can generate their own electricity by solar/wind to meet their demand and supply the surplus power to the grid at an agreed power rates. They can also draw power from the grid if there is any short fall in their production of renewable energy. It is two way traffic. There is an opportunity for people to generate revenue by sale of surplus power. It is an incentive for people to invest on renewable energy and that is why the investment on renewable energy has steadily increased over a period of time. But this is not the case with many developing and under developed countries. The situation is still worse in many islands where there is no centralized power generation at all or power distribution through grids. They depend on diesel generators. Even to transport diesel from mainland they have to use diesel operated boats. They have no drinking water even though they are surrounded by sea. I happened to visit a remote island in PNG few years ago and saw the plight of those people first hand. They live in absolute poverty and nobody cares to provide them a solution. Their voices are never heard and permanently drowned in the deafening roar of the sea. The problems of supplying clean power and water to these remote islands are not only political but also technical and commercial in nature. One has to use only commercially available systems and components which are basically meant for a single or three phase grid connected power supplies. Even though renewable energy sources basically generate only direct current (DC), one has to convert them into alternate current (AC) for easy distribution and to utilize appliances which are basically designed for AC operations. Isolated communities like islands can use direct current and also use DC operated appliances because they are commercially available and they are more efficient. Anyhow most of the house appliances need DC supply and AC/DC converters are commonly used for this purpose thus sacrificing efficiency in the process. They also need better storage solutions because they are not connected to the grid and they have to necessarily store power for several days. Some of these islands are connected with inefficient wind turbines backed by diesel generators. It is an absolute necessity to incorporate a long term storage capabilities in the system if one has to provide a continuous power and clean water. If the wind velocity is not sufficient (during off seasons) or if there is no sun (cloudy) for days together and if there is not sufficient storage capacity, then all the investment made on the project will be of no use. Any half baked solutions will not serve the real purpose. There are also commercial problems because a well designed system will cost more, which will eventually increase the power tariff. Unless the Government subsidizes the power sufficiently, people cannot afford to pay for their electricity or water. It requires a careful planning and community consultations to set up a ‘stand alone renewable energy projects in islands’. Governments in the pacific islands should act with great urgency because there is also a risk of inundation by sea level rising due to global warming. We are in the process of designing a solution to provide such islands with clean power, clean drinking water and even wireless connectivity for schools so that children can get education. It may sound ambitious but it is the first step one has to take into long journey of sustainability and self reliance by these isolated communities. There is a good possibility that such island may one day become completely independent and self sufficient with clean power and water. The same solution can be implemented in other countries too. Many countries have necessary infrastructure to generate and distribute power yet they suffer regular power cuts and black outs due to inefficiencies in their system. Our proposed solution can provide uninterrupted clean power and water because the system will have long duration centralized energy storage. We have made a detailed analysis of various alternatives available for the above purpose using Homer hybrid solution software. The solution proposes a PV solar with storage solutions using battery bank as well as Fuel cell back up. The solution also proposes long duration of storage ranging from few hours up to a fortnight .It is a standalone system with complete energy management and suitable for remote operations. The solution can also incorporate wind turbine in addition to PV solar depending upon the location and wind velocity profile. The model is to supply clean power and drinking water for 600 families with an average 3 people in a family. The system will supply power at the rate of 1.50kwhrs/day/person (1800 x1.5 = 2700kwhrs/day) and drinking water at the rate of 200 lits/day/person (1800 x 200 lit/person= 360,000 lits/day).The power for a desalination plant will be 1980 kwhrs/day. The system is designed for a total power generation capacity of 4680Khwhrs/day. The model is based on battery storage as well as based on Hydrogen storage with varying durations. Comparative analysis is shown in the figures. The first window is based on PV solar with 2 months Hydrogen autonomy. The third window is based on PV solar with battery 5 days and 17 hrs Hydrogen autonomy. The fourth and fifth window is based on PV solar with battery 17 hrs and Hydrogen 18 hrs storage autonomy with varying panel cost. The sixth window is based on PV solar with 172 hrs (one week) battery autonomy. The resulting analysis indicates that a centralized Hydrogen storage with Fuel cell back up offers the most economical solution even though the power tariff is higher than a system with battery storage. The investment for long duration battery storage is almost double that of Hydrogen based solution. The cost can further be reduced if and when the Electrolyzers as well as Fuel cells are manufactured on mass scale. The added advantage with this system is it can also provide Hydrogen fuel for Fuel cell cars and boats substituting diesel. One day it may become a reality that these isolated islands can become completely self- sufficient in terms of water, fuel and power with no greenhouse gas emissions. This solution can be replicated to all the islands all over the world. Note: The above system can also be installed in many developing countries in Africa which is an emerging market. An Africa-Australia Infrastructure Conference will be be held in Melbourne, Australia on 2-3 September 2013 and it will offer a platform for Australian companies to invest in Africa on infrastructural projects.

Hydrogen from seawater for Fuelcell

We have used Hydrocarbon as the source of fuel for our power generation and transportation since industrial revolution. It has resulted in increasing level of man-made Carbon into the atmosphere; and according to the scientists, the level of carbon has reached an unsustainable level and any further emission into the atmosphere will bring catastrophic consequences by way of climate change. We have already witnessed many natural disasters in a short of span of time. Though there is no direct link established between carbon level in the atmosphere and the global warming, there is certainly enough evidence towards increase in the frequency of natural disasters and increase in the global and ocean temeperatures.We have also seen that Hydrogen is a potential candidate as a source of future energy that can effectively substitute hydrocarbons such as Naphtha or Gasoline. However, hydrogen generation from water using electrolysis is energy intensive and the source of such energy can come only from a renewable source such as solar and wind. Another issue with electrolysis of water for Hydrogen generation is the quality of water used. The quality of water used for electrolysis is high, meeting ASTM Type I Deionized Water preferred, < 0.1 micro Siemen/cm (> 10 megOhm-cm). A unique desalination technology has been developed by an Australian company to generate onsite Hydrogen directly from seawater. In conventional seawater desalination technology using reverse osmosis process only 30-40% of fresh water is recovered as potable water with TDS less than 500 ppm as per WHO standard. The balance highly saline concentrate with TDS above 65,000 ppm is discharged back into the sea which is detrimental to the ocean’s marine life. More and more sweater desalination plants are set up all over the world to mitigate drinking water shortage. This conventional desalination is not only highly inefficient but also causes enormous damage to the marine environment. The technology developed by the above company will be able to recover almost 75% of fresh water from seawater and also able to convert the concentrate into Caustic soda lye with Hydrogen and Chlorine as by-products by electrolysis. The discharge into the sea is drastically reduced to less than 20% with no toxic chemicals. This technology has a potential to revolutionize the salt and caustic soda industries in the future. Caustic soda is a key raw material for a number of chemical industries including PVC.Conventionally, Caustic soda plants all over the world depends on solar salt for their production of Caustic soda.Hydrogne and Chlorine are by-products.Chlrine is used for the production of PVC (poly vinyl chloride) and Hydrogen is used as a fuel. In the newly developed technology, the seawater is not only purified from other contaminants such as Calcium, Magnesium and Sulfate ions present in the seawater but also concentrate the seawater almost to a saturation point so that it can be readily used to generate Hydrogen onsite. The process is very efficient and commercially attractive because it can recover four valuable products namely, drinking water, Caustic soda lye, Chlorine and Hydrogen. The generated Hydrogen can be used directly in a Fuel cell to generate power to run the electrolysis. This process is very ideal for Caustic soda plants that are currently located on seashore. This process can solve drinking water problems around the world because potable water becomes an industrial product. The concentrated seawater can also be converted in a salt by crystallization for food and pharmaceutical applications. There is a growing gap between supply and demand of salt production and most of the chemical industries are depending upon the salt from solar pans. Another potential advantage with this technology is to use wind power to desalinate the water. Both wind power and Hydrogen will form a clean energy mix. It is a win situation for both water industry and the environment as well as for the salt and chemical industries. In conventional salt production, thousands of hectares of land are used to produce few hundred tons of low quality salt with a year long production schedule. There is a mis- match between the demand for salt by large Caustic soda plants and supply from primitive methods of solar production by solar evaporation contaminating cultivable lands. The above case is an example of how clean energy technologies can change water, salt and chemical industries and also generate clean power economically, competing with centralized power plants fuelled with hydrocarbons. Innovative technologies can solve problems of water shortage, greenhouse gases, global warming, and environmental pollution not only economically but also environmental friendly manner. Industries involved in seawater desalination, salt production, chemical industries such as Caustic soda, Soda ash and PVC interested to learn more on this new technology can write directly to this blog address for further information.

Fuelcell power using Biogas

Fuel cell technology is emerging as a base-load power generation technology as well as back-up power for intermittent renewable energy such as solar and wind, substituting conventional storage batteries. However, Fuelcell requires a Fuel in the form of Hydrogen of high purity. The advantage of Fuel cell is, its high electrical efficiency compared to conventional fossil fuel power generation technology, using Carnot cycle. Fuel cell is an electro-chemical device similar to a battery and generates power using electro-chemical redox reaction silently with no gaseous emission, unlike engines and turbines with combustion, rotary movements and gaseous emissions. The fuel Hydrogen can be generated using a renewable energy sources such as solar and wind as described in my previous articles, “Solar Hydrogen for cleaner future” dated 4 July 2012, and “Renewable Hydrogen for remote power supply “dated 28 June 2012. Alternatively, Hydrogen can also be generated using biomass through Biogas. Biogas is an important source of renewable energy in the carbon constrained economy of today’s world. The biogas can be generated from waste water and agro-waste by anaerobic digestion using enzymes. Biomass such as wood waste can also be gasified to get syngas, a mixture of Hydrogen and Carbon dioxide. In anaerobic digestion, the main product will be methane gas accompanied by carbon dioxide and nitrogen while the main product in gasification will be Hydrogen, cabon monoxide and carbon dioxide and oxides of Nitrogen. Whatever may be the composition of the resulting gas mixture, our focus will be to separate methane or Hydrogen from the above mixture. In anaerobic digestion, the resulting Methane gas has to be steam reformed to get Hydrogen gas suitable for Fuel cell application. In gasification, the resulting Syngas has to be separated into pure Hydrogen and Carbon dioxide so that pure Hydrogen can be used as a fuel in Fuel cell applications. As I have outlined in many of my previous articles, Hydrogen was the only fuel we have been using all these years and we are still using it in the form of Hydrocarbons and it will continue to be the fuel in the future also. The only difference is future Hydrogen will be free from carbon. We have to address two issues to mitigate Carbon emission, and it can be done by 1.Elimination of Carbon from the fuel source. 2. Generation of Renewable and Carbon free clean energy directly from solar and wind. One option to eliminate Carbon from the fuel source is to use Biomass as the raw material to generate Hydrogen so that fresh Carbon will not be added into the atmosphere by emissions .The second option is to generate pure Hydrogen from water by electrolysis using renewable energy such as wind and solar. Environmentally friendly waste-to-energy projects are becoming popular all over the world. But currently most of these waste-to-energy projects generate either Biogas (Methane) by anaerobic digestion or Syngas (Hydrogen and Carbon dioxide) by gasification. Both these gases require further purification before they can be used as a fuel for power generation. The Methane content in the Biogas (about 60% methane and 40% Carbon dioxide with other impurities) needs to be enriched to 90% Methane and free from other impurities. The composition of a typical Biogas is shown in table1. The resulting purified methane gas will be reformed using steam reformation in presence of a catalyst to obtain syngas; finally Hydrogen should be separated from resulting syngas so that it can be used directly into the Fuelcell.The common Fuel cell used for this application is invariably Phosphoric acid fuel cell. PAFC uses 100% Phosphoric acid in Silicon carbide matrix as an electrolyte. PAFC is a self contained unit completely enclosed in a cabin consisting of a gas reformer, Fuellcell power generator, Power conditioning unit and other auxiliaries. The PAFC is of modular construction with capacities ranging from 100Kw up to 500Kw as a single unit. It can be installed outdoor in the open and it can be readily connected to a piped Biogas. It can also be connected to existing piped natural gas or LPG bullet as a stand-by fuel. Any waste-to energy project can be integrated with Fuel cell power generation with CHP application to get maximum economic and environmental benefits. Hydrogen derived from biomass will be an important source of fuel in the future of clean energy; and Fuel cell will become an alternative power generation technology for both stationary power generation and transportation such as Fuel cell car or Hybrid cars. PAFC is a compact, self-contained power generation unit that is used even for base load power. The electrical efficiency of PAFC is about 42% .It is suitable for CHP applications so that the total energy efficiency can reach up to 85%.It is ideal for supplying continuous power 24x7 and also to use waste heat for space heating or space air-conditioning with an absorption chiller in CHP applications. The ideal candidates for PAFC power generation using CHP will be hospitals, super markets, Data centers, Universities or any continuous process industry.PAFC is currently used as a backup power for large scale renewable energy project with an access to piped natural gas. A schematic flow diagram of a fuel cell power generation is shown in Fig 3 using biogas at Yamagata sewage treatment plant in Japan. Biomass based Fuecell power generation has a great potential all over the world irrespective of location and size of the country.

Energy,water and global warming

At the outset it may sound odd but in reality water and energy are two sides of the same coin and both industries have a great impact on global warming.We take for example, power generation industries. Two basic requirements for any power plant are fuel and water. It does not matter what kind of fuel is used whether it is a coal based power plant, liquid fuel based plant like Naphtha, and gas based plants using piped natural gas or LNG. We will consider only power generation involving conversion of thermal energy into electrical energy. Currently more than 80% of power generation in the world is based on thermal power including nuclear plants. All thermal power plants use steam as the prime motive force to drive the turbines, gas turbine is an exception but even, in gas based plants the secondary motive force is steam using waste heat recovery boilers, in combined cycle operations. The quality of water for conversion into steam is of high quality and purer than our drinking water. The second usage of water is for cooling purpose. The water consumption by power plants using once through cooling system is 1 lit/kwhr, and by closed circuit cooling tower, it is 1.7lit/kwhr. Only about 40% power plants in Europe for example use closed circuit cooling towers and the rest use only ‘once through’ cooling systems. The total power generated in 2010 by two largest users US and China, were 3792Twhrs and 3715 Twhrs respectively. The total world power production, in 2008 was 20,262 Twhrs, using following methods. Fossil fuel: Coal 41 %, Oil 5.50%, Gas 21%, Nuclear 13% and Hydro 16%.Renewable: PV solar 0.06%, PV thermal 0.004%, Wind 1.1%, Tide 0.003 %, Geothermal 0.3%, Biomass &others 1.30%. (1Twhrs is = 1,000,000,000 kwhrs)(Ref: Wikipedia). The above statistics gives us an idea on how much water is being used by power generating plants in the world. Availability of fresh water on planet earth, is only 2.5% (96. 5% oceans, 1.70% ground water, 1.7% glaciers and ice caps, and 0.001% in the air, as vapor and clouds).The world’s precious water source is used for power generation, while millions of people do not have water to drink. The cost of bottled drinking water is US$ 0.20 /lit, in countries like, India. This situation is simply unsustainable. The prime cause of this situation is lack of technology to produce clean power without using water. The power technology we use today is based on the principle of electromagnetism invented by Michael Faraday in the year 1839. That is why, renewable energy is becoming critically important at this juncture when the world is at the cross road. Many countries are now opting for seawater desalination to meet their water demand. Desalination again is an energy intensive process. For example, 3-4 kwhrs of power is used to desalinate 1 m3 of water. This power now comes from fossil fuel fired thermal power plants, which are often co-located with desalination plants, so that all the discharge from both the plants can be easily pumped into the sea. Since the world is running out of fresh water, we have to look for attentive source of water. In countries like India, the ground water is being exploited for agricultural purpose and power generation and the ground water is getting depleted. Depleting water resources is a threat to agriculture production especially when countries depend only on monsoon rains. Unabated emission of greenhouse from fossil fuel power plants and transportation causes globe to warm. Draught and water scarcity threatens food security. It is a vicious circle. Recent delay in onset of monsoon rains in India have caused grave concern for Government and the people of India. Shortage of power and water has compounded the problem for farmers and suicide rate among the farmers is increasing at alarming rate in India. “Globally, this seems to be one of the worst summers in recorded history. The global average temperature for May was the second hottest ever since 1880 - the year records were first compiled - US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC) has said. Only 2010 witnessed a worse May. The NCDC said such a hot May was never recorded in the northern hemisphere. No scientist will pin it on human-induced climate change - it is scientifically untenable to do so - but many affirm that these extreme weather phenomena is along predicted lines of rise in global temperatures For India, the looming possibility of El Nino dulling the monsoon rains in July-August only means things could get worse. There is half a chance that the El Nino phenomenon will pick up intensity and hit the tail of the monsoon. Thirteen of the 20 times El Nino has been recorded, it has dimmed the intensity of the monsoon, causing widespread drought. Already, the northwest region of India has suffered a rainfall deficit worse than the rest of India. But the misery of rising heat is being felt worldwide with "normal weather" systems in disarray. If large areas of the western Himalayas in Uttarakhand have suffered raging forest fires, so has the US - more than 8 lakh hectares have been engulfed in flames. The March-May period for the US has been the hottest ever. Brazil is in the midst of its worst drought in five decades with more than 1,000 towns suffering. Heavy downpours and unheard of hail has hit China and flash floods have ravaged crops in Ethiopia. The Eurasian snow cover extent has been recorded at its smallest ever for the month of May since such records were maintained for the first time in 1967. The cover was 2.67 million sqkm below average in May,theUSNCDCsaid. The southern hemisphere, where winters prevail at the moment, too has been recording extremes like never before. The Australian winter has been exceptionally cold, with the fifth coolest winter minimum temperature in over half a century of record keeping. The Antarctic sea ice extent has gone above the 1979-2000 average. In contrast, the Arctic sea ice recorded a much smaller than average extent for the same period”. (Ref: The Economic Times). The global warming has caused many natural disasters such as recent bush fires in Colorado springs in US destroying more than 300,000 houses and heavy storms in Washington causing power black outs for days together in sweltering heat. No country is immune to global warming and sea level rising. How the consequences of global warming will manifest in different forms affecting human beings and other lives is yet to be seen in years to come. That is why distributed energy systems using Hydrogen as an alternative fuel is an important step towards sustainability. One can generate Hydrogen from water, using renewable energy source like solar or wind, and store them for future usage. The stored Hydrogen can be used to generate power, as and when required, at any remote location, even where there is no grid power. The water is regenerated during this process of power generation using Fuel cell which can be recycled. There is no large consumption of water and there is no greenhouse emission. It is a clean and sustainable solution. The same stored Hydrogen can also be used to fuel their cars in the near future!

Solar Hydrogen for a cleaner future

With recent announcement of the prestigious award to NREL (National renewable energy laboratory, USA) for developing SJ3 solar cells along with their industrial partner Solar Junction, there is a new hope and expectation that PV solar will become a major source of clean energy of the future.Togather with Hydrogen as an energy carrier, the PV solar hydrogen will certainly be a game changer. With increasing efficiency of solar panel from 17.24% up to 50%, and generating high pressure hydrogen using improved solid polymer electrolyzer, the sun and water will become the future source of clean energy replacing our decade long dependency on fossil fuel. There is also a distinct possibility of converting water into hydrogen by direct sunlight using photo-electrolysis as explained in my previous article, “Can we duplicate Nature’s photosynthesis for Hydrogen production?”’ dated April 2,2012. SJ3 solar cell uses tunable band gaps, lattice matched architecture with ultra-concentration tunnel junction to achieve the highest conversion efficiency of 43.5% with a possibility to reach an efficiency of 50%.This conversion efficiency is the percentage amount of solar energy converted directly into electrical energy. Such a high efficiency is due to the lens focusing the sunlight with 418 times intensity of the sun. There is no additional cost involved except the bottom Germanium layer of three junctions with Gallium and a dash of dilute nitride alloy. This small change boosts the bottom band-gap from 0.67 eV (electron volts) to 1.0 eV.The three layered SJ3 cell captures various frequencies of sunlight at various times and conditions achieving the best efficiency of converting photons to electrons. High pressure PEM Hydrogen generators producing 99.99% purity Hydrogen at elevated pressures are already under development. With carbon fiber storage tanks up to 10,000 psi pressure ratings, Fuel cell cars will become commercial reality overtaking Lithium battery powered electrical vehicles.PV solar Hydrogen will significantly alter the transportation and stationary power generation industries in the future simply because hydrogen has the highest heat value and it is absolutely clean. Age old centralized power plants using fossil fuels with highest carbon emission and water consumption has created serious environmental problems all over the world. Coastal power plants discharge huge amount of ‘once through’ cooling water into the sea at higher temperature and at higher salinity.Tranasport industries using fossil fuels emit high greenhouse gases due to age old, inefficient combustion engines causing global warming. Low humidity, high surface temperatures, dry conditions and lightning are perfect combination of conditions for bush fires similar to the one witnessed in Colorado mountain ranges. It is a right time to adopt distributed energy systems so that individual houses and business can generate their own power using PV solar and wind Hydrogen with no transmission grids and grid failures. It is time to replace fossil fuel with sun’s light and pure water so that we can hope for a cleaner future. We have all the necessary technologies and we need a will and concerted effort to make these changes.

Cheap Hydrogen to combat global warming?

Hydrogen is well-known as a potential source of clean energy of the future. But it is not available in a free form; its generation from water using Electrolysis requires more energy than, a free Hydrogen can generate. It requires about 5kws power to generate 1 m3 Hydrogen gas, which means, it requires about 56 Kw power to generate 1 Kg Hydrogen using water electrolysis. But 1Kg Hydrogen can generate only about 15-20 Kw Electricity using a Fuel cell. This anomalous situation makes Hydrogen generation using water electrolysis uneconomical for the purpose of clean power generation. That is why most of the Hydrogen is currently generated by steam reforming natural gas. Another reason for using natural gas is, to reduce the cost of Hydrogen and also, to achieve a smooth transition from fossil economy to Hydrogen economy using existing infrastructures. Power generation and transportation using Hydrogen and Fuel cell has been commercially tested, proven and ready for deployment. However, we still have to deal with emission of greenhouse gas during steam reformation of natural gas due to the presence of carbon atom in natural gas. Meanwhile, one American company recently announced a break-through technology that will generate free thermal energy from atomic Hydrogen using a patented process. The inventor of the process claims, when atomic Hydrogen is allowed to react with a specific Catalyst, Hydrogen atom undergoes a transition to a new atom called “Hydrino”, releasing energy while the electron in the atom shifts to a lower orbit close to proton. It was believed so far that the electron in Hydrogen atom is at its lowest level (ground level) and the closest to proton. This is the first time somebody claims that there is a lower state than the ground state in Hydrogen atom and the amount of energy released in this transition to ‘Hydrino”, is in between by an uncatalyzed Hydrogen atom by combustion and nuclear energy. Unlike nuclear energy, this energy is non-radioactive. But the energy released by this process is more than 200 times than energy released by Hydrogen atom by normal combustion. The reaction does not create any pollution or radio-active materials as by-products. The process has been tested, verified and certified by scientists in few laboratories and universities. The above process offers great hope to generate a clean, non-polluting energy at the lowest cost. The ‘dihydrino and Hydrogen is separated and Hydrogen is recycled back to continue the process while’dihydrino’ has other potential commercial applications. The inventor has named this power as “Black power” as he hypotheses that such phenomena explain the presence of “dark matter” in Galaxies. According to quantum mechanics, the energy level of a normal Hydrogen atom is at its ground level as its minimum level (N=1), but its energy level increases at higher states such as N=2, 3, 4.When the energy level jumps from higher (excited state) to a lower level, it emits energy in the form of photon of light (Quanta).The spectrum of such emission matches the ultraviolet light of the sun. Since sub-quantum atoms are non-radioactive, the inventor claims that he is duplicating the above process of Nature by a catalytic thermal process in the state of Plasma using a specific Catalyst. If such a large thermal energy is released by formation of ‘Hydrino’atom in the above process, then such energy can be used to generate Hydrogen by conventional water electrolysis at a fraction of the cost. Then, Hydrogen economy can become a commercial reality and the above technology has a potential not only to generate power at fraction of a cost of the fossil fuel but also to generate a clean and non-polluting power. The inventor has also hypothesised a "grand new unified theory” of atom as the basis for the above invention. Mainstream scientists have always have been reluctant to support such “free energy” theories but, when someone can demonstrate the process of generating an excess energy (more than 200 times than the theoretical energy released by an exothermic chemical reaction) and it is non-radioactive then mainstream scientists may be sidelined by world community. It is always possible to demonstrate something unique without any theory and come out later with a theoretical explanation to satisfy the scientific community. Many discoveries in the past were by mere accidents and one should have an open mind to look into any new concepts without any bias, especially if the discovery can resolve serious problems of humanity at times of crisis.

Concentrated solar power - a game changer

We acknowledge that solar energy is a potential renewable energy source of the future. The total energy requirement of the world is projected in the next 40 years to be 30 TW (terra watts) and only solar energy has a potential to meet the above demand. However, harnessing sun’s energy to its fullest potential is still a long way to go. Concentrated solar power (CSP) offers a greater hope to fill this gap. The main reason is the cost advantage of CSP compared to PV solar and energy storage technologies and their costs. The cost of PV solar has steadily decreased in the past few years. Though the cost of solar cell has come down to $0.75 per watt, the overall cost of the PV system is still around $ 3.00 per watt. This is due to the cost of encapsulation; interconnect wiring, mounting of panels, inverters and battery bank. The overall cost of the system will not come down drastically beyond a point. This makes PV solar still more expensive compared to conventional power generation using fossil fuels. People can understand the value of renewable energy and impending dangers of global warming due to greenhouse gases, but the ultimate cost of energy will determine the future of energy sources. In PV solar the sun’s light energy is directly converted into Electricity, but storing such energy using batteries have certain limitations. PV solar is suitable for small scale operations but it may not be cost effective for large scale base load power generation. The best option will be to harness the suns thermal energy and store them and use them to generate power using the conventional and established methods such as steam or gas turbines. Once we generate thermal energy of required capacity then we have number of technologies to harness them into useful forms. As we mentioned earlier, the thermal energy can trigger a chemical reaction such as formation of Ammonia by reaction between Hydrogen and Nitrogen under pressure, which will release a large amount of thermal energy by exothermic reaction. Such heat can be used to generate steam to run a stem turbine to generate power. The resulting ammonia can be split with concentrated solar power (CSP) into Hydrogen and Nitrogen and the above process can be repeated. The same system can also be used to split commercial Ammonia into Hydrogen and Nitrogen. The resulting Hydrogen can be separated and stored under pressure. This Hydrogen can be used to fuel Fuel cell cars such as Honda FXC or to generate small scale power for homes and offices. By using CSP, there is potential of cost savings as much as 70% compared to PV solar system for the same capacity power generation on a larger scale. Focusing sun’s energy using large diameter parabolic troughs and concentrators, one can generate high temperatures. Dishes can typically vary in size and configuration from a small diameter of perhaps 1 meter to much larger structures of a dozen or more meters in diameter. Point focus dish concentrators are mounted on tracking systems that track the sun in two axes, directly pointing at the sun, and the receiver is attached to the dish at the focal point so that as the dish moves, the receiver moves with it. These point focus systems can generate high temperatures exceeding 800ºC and even 1,800ºC. The temperature required to run a steam turbine does not exceed 290C and it is quite possible to store thermal energy using mixture of molten salts with high Eutectic points and use them to generate steam. Such large scale energy storage using lead-acid batteries and power generation using PV solar may not be economical. But it will be economical and technically feasible to harness solar thermal energy using CSP for large scale base load power generation. It is estimated that the cost of such CSP will compete with traditional power generation using coal or oil in the near future.CSP has potential to generate cost effective clean power as well as a fuel for transportation.

How to generate your own Hydrogen?

It is amazing that highly combustible Hydrogen is a constituent of cool water. As long as it remains a part of a water molecule we are able to handle it easily. Water is always in a state of ionization with H+ and OH- ions in a dynamic equilibrium. The electrical conductivity of pure water which is completely free from any other ions is almost zero. In a solid polymer electrolyzer, which is the reverse of Fuel cell, water is decomposed into Hydrogen and Oxygen while passing a Direct current. Electrolyzer is an electrolytic cell similar to battery, containing an Anode, Cathode and Electrolyte. In a solid polymer Electrolyzer, the electrolyte is a polymer membrane. Water is decomposed as shown in the following reaction: At Anode of electrolyzer: H2O-------- 0.5 O2 + 2e + 2H† At Cathode of electrolyzer: 2H† + 2e ------ H2 The purity of water is critical in the above process of electrolysis. In conventional electrolysis, water with addition of potash lye (KOH) acts as an electrolyte. But in the above process there is no need for any addition of lye. Moreover, Hydrogen can be generated at high pressure so that further compression becomes easier. In cases of power generation using Fuel cell, the Hydrogen pressure from Electrolyzer is sufficiently high, obviating the usage of an additional compressor. The electrical conductivity of water increases as the concentration of dissolved salts increases. That is why the conductivity of seawater is much higher than your tapwater.But this salt can be removed by the process of desalination using ‘reverse osmosis’ systems. When you separate pure water and salt water using a semi permeable membrane there is natural tendency for pure water to pass across the membrane to pure water side. This process is called ‘Osmosis’. The process continues till the concentration of water on both side of the membrane becomes equal. Nature does not like disparities between strong and weak and always tend to make both equal. By reversing this principle of osmosis, we can separate salt water into pure water and highly concentrated salt water known as brine. This process is called ‘Reverse osmosis’. We will discuss about this process later. If your tap water is not very hard, say for example, total dissolved solids TDS is around 500ppm (Part per million), then the osmotic pressure is not high, which means you do not need to use a high pressure pump. Higher the TDS level, higher the osmotic pressure and higher the power consumption will be. You can install a reverse osmosis system based on your water analysis. You have to use a pure water with low electrical conductivity less than 1 micro Siemens/cm.The reverse osmosis system can be connected to your tap and store pure water while draining the salt water into the drain. You can use this pure water into an Electrolyzer to generate Hydrogen. The Hydrogen can be stored in a tank made up of Carbon composite materials that can withstand high pressure and approved by regulatory authorities. This article is only to understand how Hydrogen can be generated using your tap water. The actual implementation of the system requires knowledge and experience in installing such a system. But we will release an eBook, a step by step guide to set up your power generation system as well fuelling your Fuel cell car, using Hydrogen. An independent power generation and fuelling system using only solar power and water will soon become a commercial reality because, it is a clean and sustainable solution for all our energy problems. The PV solar industries are already expanding at a faster rate and solar Hydrogen will soon become an ultimate solution.