solar thermal energy

  Solar Thermal Energy

- Growing In Popularity

Solar thermal energy is one of the two forms of energy, the other being electric energy and it is present in every part of the planet and it helps in illuminating our days and heating the earth, humans as well as their homes. You can also use solar thermal energy to dry clothes and it provides us with tomatoes dried in the sun all without costing us much. In addition, one can use it to heat up water for use in the home and even your swimming pools. Thus, solar thermal energy has a lot of uses and very little cost.

Numerous Applications for Solar Thermal Energy

It is possible to use technology for solar thermal energy in which it provides energy for many applications including solar heating and also electrical power generation. Use is made of solar thermal collectors that help in generating solar hot water that can be of great help in domestic use as well as for lighting up your home. There are other uses for solar thermal energy in the field of architecture as well as designing of buildings where it proves helpful in controlling heating and also ventilation, using either active or passive solar designs.

When you require space heating, you will get most efficiency from the use of fixed flat-plate collectors which should face south and are at an angle of about fifteen degrees. Of the many flat-plate collector designs used for solar thermal energy there are a few that stand out including flat-plate absorbers, transparent covers as also heat transport fluid and heat insulating backing.

Also, you can make use of either active or passive solar thermal energy. The passive system involves circulation of air past a solar heat surface or surfaces through a building with the help of convection, and all this in the absence of any mechanical equipment. The active system, on the other hand involves fans as well as pumps that circulate air or a heat absorbing fluid.

Solar thermal energy is generated from solar thermal power plants that utilize the rays from the sun to heat fluids that in turn make use of systems for transferring heat and producing steam that is further converted into mechanical energy and then into electricity with the help of generators that are attached to the steam producing turbines.

Though the use of solar thermal energy has been lying dormant for the past few years, it seems to be making a comeback in Nevada, where the Nevada Solar One is the first thermal power plant constructed in the past sixteen years. Such a project is usually quite costly and also time consuming which is why it may have lain dormant for so many years. Nevertheless, the electricity produced is certainly available at very competitive prices and thus well worth the effort in the long run.