Skip to Main Content
Renewable Energy and Climate Change, 2nd Edition, 2nd Edition
book

Renewable Energy and Climate Change, 2nd Edition, 2nd Edition

by Volker V. Quaschning
April 2019
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
352 pages
11h 34m
English
Wiley
Content preview from Renewable Energy and Climate Change, 2nd Edition, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 7Solar Power Plants – Even More Power from the Sun

When we think of power plants, we usually imagine large central facilities with cooling towers and enormous chimneys emitting clouds of smoke. In terms of the concept itself, a power plant is merely a technical installation that converts a particular energy source into electricity. A solar power plant produces electric energy from solar radiation. We have already learned about one type of solar power plant – photovoltaic or PV systems. In principle, a small PV system sited on a single-family house does indeed constitute a solar power plant. However, since most people envisage a power plant as something much larger than a few square metres of solar modules, this chapter is devoted to large-scale systems that generate electricity from sunlight.

PV systems can in fact reach a size that is comparable with conventional power plants. Year after year new PV power plants have been breaking their own records in terms of size. PV systems with a capacity in the region of 5 MW and module areas of around 40 000 m2 have already been installed on the roofs of industrial buildings. However, existing roofs are usually not appropriate for even larger systems. Plants with 50, 100, or even 1000 MW can only be achieved with ground-mounted systems. Large PV plants are technically very similar to the small systems on single-family houses, except that they are larger in scale. This chapter therefore deals with other types of large-scale solar ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Renewable Energy, 5th Edition

Renewable Energy, 5th Edition

Bent Sorensen
Principles of Financial Engineering, 3rd Edition

Principles of Financial Engineering, 3rd Edition

Robert Kosowski, Salih N. Neftci

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781119514862Purchase book