Commercially Viable Multi-megawatt Solar Power Stations

Solar generated electricity has never been commercially viable due to the high capital costs involved. The general concept of using giant parabolic solar collectors, looking like, and costing as much as radio telescopes was always a dead end. High tech was seen not to be the answer. So we went for low-cost and low-tech. Our fundamental design concept was to produce commercial solar electricity competitive with coal or oil or gas fired power stations. This has never been achieved before but things have changed. In the midday sun the Yeomans System will produce 1,000 watts of generated electricity for a total capital cost of less than A$ 1000.

Secondary parabolic concentrator \ Vertical side mirrors

Simplified schematic diagram of the Yeomans solar concentrator optics

Steam or Photo-Voltaic
In the Yeomans System the whole solar field is made of cheap easy to construct modular components. These modules pin together and float in round, prebuilt ponds. The modules form a large mobile floating raft. This makes for simple alignment to the sun with the water becoming both the leveling means and the hacking bearings. Each module contains twenty square metres of primary mirrors collecting a maximum of twenty thousand waits of primary solar energy. Super-heated steam at 500 C and 70 bar (1,000 psi) can be generated to drive conventional turbines. Alternatively the system

can be configured to generate electricity directly using multisun photovoltaic cells.

Power Station Cost Analysis

In any power station an out-laid capital of $1,000 per kilowatt of generation capacity equates to approximately a one cent cost per kilowatt hour of electricity generated when depreciation and the financial servicing of the capital is factored in. Coal fired power stations generally cost, in total, about $ 1,000 per kilowatt of generating capacity to build. Therefore from

electricity from coal (oil or gas) fired power stations costs one cent per kilowatt hour, plus the cost of the fuel used. Fuel costs vary from over six cents per kilowatt hour to as low as two cents, (if the power station is located adjacent to a coal mine). With solar energy fuel costs are effectively zero; so to produce electricity for around 5 or 6 cents per kilowatt hour it is necessary that capital costs to construct the plant must be below $5000 to $6000 per kilowatt of capacity. This is with costs averaged over 24 hours. The Yeomans System does this and it's now available.

The Construction Concept

The primary Fresnel mirrors are made from thin back-silvered glass strips. The mirror strips are glued onto high precision pre-cast light weight concrete pads. The mirrors form a series of Fresnel parabolic troughs with parallel focal lines. The light weight concrete provides the floatation for the system. Small low cost s e c o n d a r y parabolic mirrors boost concentration to 170 suns. Two axis tracking is achieved by pivoting the secondary mirrors. High pressure super heated steam is "one shot" generated in 25mm collector tubes to over 500C. The tubes produce a unique rotating water/steam flow experiencing high "g" forces ensuring rapid and efficient steam generation.
Looking into a Fresnel mirror panel

The module frame construction is similar to galvanised iron roof perlons. Individual concrete panels are 1180mm wide by 2312mm long with an overall height of 127mm. (roughly 8 feet by 4 feet by 5" thick). Into the top surface is cast 75mm wide serrations to take the 1177mm long by 75mm wide by 2mm thick flat mirror strips that f o r m the F r e s n e l p a r a b o l i c trough. The modular platforms are pinned together to form the floating raft. Production systems will use ponds 107m in diameter. Each pond will be constructed by leveling a suitable area of ground and c o n s t r u c t i n g a brick surrounding wall 800mm high (32"). This is then filled with water to a depth of 500mm (20"). Any clay-type soil, after settling, will hold water satisfactorily with minimum replenishment.

Each pond will contain 7,000m of p r i m a r y solar collecting F r e s n e l mirrors. These will generate up to 6 tonnes of superheated steam per hour and in turn generate over one megawatt of electric power.

It's Simple, It's Strong, and It's Cheap

The system uses a mat of floating rafts with glass mirror strips embedded in the top surface of floating concrete panels. The whole floating raft array is assembled from modular platforms 4.8m square (16 feet). Each of the flat m o d u l a r platforms contains eight pre-cast concrete panels.

Module layout in 107m diameter pond The test pond we now use is 37.5m diameter (61.5 feet) and designed to take 37 modular platforms including one central work platform at the hub. This allows for 720m 2 of primary mirrors. Our original test tank was 16m (52 feet) in diameter and contained nine 12 foot square modules. Mounted on some of the outer peripheral modules are rubber wheels which roll around the inner surface of the outer brick wall. Some are mechanically driven to align the system with the sun. These are controlled by a conventional tracking system..

New test pond, 37 metres in diamzter

water covcr will dccrca*c the velocity of hail Monet, up In

75mm (3") max diameter, enough

to prevent any mirror damage The focal lines of the the Fresnel mirrors are approximately 4.6m (15 feet) above the mirror p l a t f o r m s . An "A" frame mounted on each platform supports the secondary optical concentration system that boosts concentration up to 170 suns at midday. The secondary system includes two parallel vertical mirrors facing each other with their lower edges set approximately at the focal height of the Fresnel mirrors. This "locks in" the 21:1 primary mirror concentration. A series of small, float glass, heatsagged parabolic mirrors mounted between the parallel mirrors increases the optical concentration another eight fold. This system faces down and so is not directly exposed to weather. The final collector is a 25mm diameter by 200mm long (1" by 8") metal pipe containing the w a t e r / s t e a m m e d i u m . The collector tube has a high temperature selective surface coated onto its specially serrated outer surface and collects in excess of 99% of the impinging sunlight.

A test rig mounted on a rotating base. Fresnel mirrors can be tilted to test at different solar elevations.

Peripheral areas, not forming complete squares, are in-filled to prevent sunlight entering the water.

c o n t a i n s "car w a s h " t y p e revolving brushes. Cleaning time per 20 m2 module is less than 20 seconds.

Mirrors have to be washed

Solar concentrator mirrors do require regular washing. Most other solar installations simply forget this need in their designs and washing then has to be done by hand. In the Yeomans System a traveling platform was especially designed to perform this task mechanically. The platform runs along and over the connected modules using their outer frame as rails. The traveling platform

Big hail stones are no problem

A small sheet-metal inner wall about 400mm (16") high is mounted on and surrounds the entire primary mirror array. Should hail or threatening weather be indicated, a highvolume, low-head, irrigationtype pump is used to pump the water up onto the mirrored surfaces from below, forming a "pond within a pond" and sinking the primary mirror system. This

Best Quality Commercial Steam

The Yeomans System can p r o d u c e s t e a m at 70 bar (1,000psi) and in excess of 500C easily. These temperatures and pressures are typical of steam supply to efficient turbine systems. Piggy-back operation to enhance production in conventional coal-fired power stations is an ideal application of the system.
Washing the old mirror panels with a travelling platform.

and Multiple collector tubes for direct solar to super-heated steam, ANZSES Solar 99 conference held in Geelong, 1999. C o m e and Talk If y o u a r e i n t e r e s t e d in commercial, solar-generated power installations, from one megawatt up, please talk to us. Patents are granted or are covered by patent applications in most countries within 40 of the equator. Contact Allan J. Yeomans or Dr. Ian Moore Yeomans Plow Co. Pty. Ltd. Demand Ave., Arundel Gold Coast City, Australia Phone: +61 7 5571 6544 Fax: +617 55716566

Deploying a new light-weight concrete panel into the test pond

Reference Papers Twenty Four Hour Operation? Solar generated power is best sold into the "grid" system. Alternatively, steam only may be produced to supplement operations of existing coal fired plants. Also overnight storage of heat for 24 hour power generation in either hot molten salts or scrap iron appears eminently practical and cost effective on preliminary figures. However for "stand alone", p o w e r g e n e r a t i o n auxiliary gas or oil heating is ideal and complements the solar installation. Multi-Sun Photovoltaics The use of the Yeomans System in conjunction with multiple-sun p h o t o v o l t a i c cells a p p e a r s attractive. A commercial module using PV cells will be developed. In this case only the primary Fresnel mirror system is used f i r i n g a maximum concentration of up to 30 suns. Multiple sun PV cells overheat and need efficient cooling. In our system the platforms float on an immediately accessible water supply and heat sink. The PV cells will be mounted horizontally and face down and are therefore not subject to weather damage. Further technical information can be found in the following three papers by Dr. Ian Moore PhD (Physics), BSc (Hons 1A) and Allan J. Yeomans. Copies of these papers are available from our office. Analysis and Optimisation of The Optics for a Large-Scale, Economical Solar Concentrator ANZSES Solar 98 conference held in Christchurch New Zealand, 1998. A Large-scale Solar Concentrator for Economical Power Generation,

Vacuum lifting a concrete panel off the fibreglass mould base