EMERGING SOLAR

THERMAL
TECHNOLOGIES

Dr. M. Rizwan Khan

Associate Professor
Department of Electrical
Engineering 1
India is full of sun energy. Technologies developed on the use of this
energy can applications, thereby, making modern sources of energy
more accessible to rural people.

It has been noted that a huge amount of these fossil fuels, especially
electricity and fuel oil are being consumed for thermal applications
e.g. water /air heating, community cooking, process heat, space
cooling etc., which probably could have been minimized by using
other fuel options or to an extent with solar thermal technologies
wherever possible.

It has been estimated that about 15 million tonnes of fuel oil is being
consumed in industries alone for process heat applications requiring
temperature below 25oC.
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Over 5 x 1012 units of electricity is also being consumed in various
establishments for hot water and air heating applications. Another
35,000 MW of power is being utilized for cooling applications out of
which 50 per cent is being generated through DG sets requiring fuel
oil due to power shortages.

Solar water heating is already an established technology and is in

promotion at a large scale for providing hot water for various
applications. This technology is, however, limited to temperatures
below 9oC.

Systems based on this technology also require large space for desired
heat delivery. Concentrating solar technologies (CSTs) are now
emerging fast in the country which can provide high temperatures in
the range of 100o - 450o C more even.

These technologies basically focus the sunlight at a receiver to achieve

higher temperatures for various applications.
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 STATUS ABROAD

Most of these technologies have been developed and demonstrated in

the USA and Spain mainly for the purpose of power generation.

Most popular technologies for this purpose have been the parabolic
trough concentrators and central tower receiver.

Parabolic dish collector and linear Fresnel reflector technologies have

also been demonstrated at few places.

These technologies, have, however, been hardly used for process heat,
cooking or cooling applications.

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 NATIONAL STATUS
In India 3 types of concentrating solar technologies are presently in
promotion. These are
Manually tracked dish solar cookers to cook food for 10-40 people,

Fixed focus E-W automatically tracked elliptical dishes (Scheffler)

for direct indoor cooking for about 50-100 people and for steam
generation for the purpose of community cooking, laundry, space
cooling etc. of any capacity, and

Dual axis fully tracked Fresnel dishes (Arun) for all such
applications. These technologies are in implementation for last few
years with support from Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
(MNRE).

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 COMMUNITY COOKING

Concentrating solar systems have been found to be quite suitable for

cooking food for hundreds and thousands of people in community
kitchens especially at religious places and institutional canteens.
The worlds largest system is functioning at Shirdi for cooking food
for 20,000 people/day.
The system comprises of 73 fixed focus single axis automatically
tracked elliptical dishes each of 16 sq.m area which generates about
3500 kg steam/day.
It was commissioned in July 2009 and has been cooking food for
pilgrims twice a day.
A saving of around 263 kg of LPG/ day (18-20 cylinders) has been
reported by the Shirdi Sansthan on a clear sunny day.

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 Many more such systems at religious ashrams, boarding schools and
industrial canteens have been installed and functioning. A few are
listed as below:
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Leh (500 students)
BOSCH Ltd, Hosur Road, Bangalore (2500 people)
Boys Hostel, JSS Mahavidyapeetha, Mysore (5000 students)
Shanti Kunj, Haridwar, Uttrakhand (1000 people)
SRM University, Chennai (7,500 students)
Satyabhama University, Chennai (15,000 students)
Dayalbagh Education Institute, Agra (2 nos.; one for 500 and other
for 1500 students in hostels)
Vivekananda Vidhyapeeth, Chhattisgarh (1000 people)
Mount Abu (10,000 people);
Tirupathi (15,000 people).

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Fig. 1: Concentrating Solar Systems Have Been Found To Be
Suitable For Cooking Food For Large Number Of People In
Community Kitchens.
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 PROCESS HEAT AND LAUNDRY
CST based systems are also being installed in industries and
commercial establishments, viz., hotels and hospitals for process
heat and laundry applications.
One such project has been installed at Hindusthan Vidyut Products
Limited, Faridabad, Haryana, a leading manufacturer of overhead
conductors, underground cables and electro-porcelain high tension
insulators.
The project comprising of 20 parabolic dishes of 16 sq.m each is
able to deliver around 1 million kcal of heat per day for the purpose
of vulcanizing of cables which is being done by dipping the cable-
core in water for 18 to 24 hours in a heated tank with the
temperature maintained up to 85o C.
Another system installed at Ahmed nagar, Maharashtra for laundry
application is working satisfactorily for many years.

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 A few more such systems installed in the country are listed as
below:
B. S. Paper & Board Mills, Ludhiana (10 Scheffler dishes each of 16
sq.m).
Gajraj Drycleaners, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra (15 dishes, each of
16 sq.m) for steam pressing of clothes.
ITC Maurya, Delhi (2 Arun dishes each of 169 sq.m and 11
Scheffler dishes of 16 sq. m each).

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