Solar pond
Encyclopedia
Solar thermal energy
Solar thermal energy is a technology for harnessing solar energy for thermal energy . Solar thermal collectors are classified by the United States Energy Information Administration as low-, medium-, or high-temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are flat plates generally used to heat...
collector with integral heat storage for supplying thermal energy. A solar pond
Pond
A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens, water features and koi ponds; all designed for aesthetic ornamentation as landscape or architectural...
can be used for various applications, such as process heating, desalination
Desalination
Desalination, desalinization, or desalinisation refers to any of several processes that remove some amount of salt and other minerals from saline water...
, refrigeration, drying and solar power
Solar power
Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available...
generation.
Description
A solar pond is simply a pool of saltwaterSeawater
Seawater is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% . This means that every kilogram of seawater has approximately of dissolved salts . The average density of seawater at the ocean surface is 1.025 g/ml...
which collects and stores solar thermal energy. The saltwater naturally forms a vertical salinity
Salinity
Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...
gradient
Gradient
In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar field is a vector field that points in the direction of the greatest rate of increase of the scalar field, and whose magnitude is the greatest rate of change....
also known as a "halocline
Halocline
In oceanography, a halocline is a subtype of chemocline caused by a strong, vertical salinity gradient within a body of water. Because salinity affects the density of seawater, it can play a role in its vertical stratification...
", in which low-salinity water floats on top of high-salinity water. The layers of salt solutions increase in concentration (and therefore density) with depth. Below a certain depth, the solution has a uniformly high salt concentration.
There are 3 distinct layers of water in the pond:
- The top layer, which has a low salt content.
- An intermediate insulating layer with a salt gradient, which establishes a density gradient that prevents heat exchange by natural convectionConvectionConvection is the movement of molecules within fluids and rheids. It cannot take place in solids, since neither bulk current flows nor significant diffusion can take place in solids....
. - The bottom layer, which has a high saltBrineBrine is water, saturated or nearly saturated with salt .Brine is used to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining . Brine is also commonly used to age Halloumi and Feta cheeses, or for pickling foodstuffs, as a means of preserving them...
content.
If the water is relatively translucent, and the pond's bottom has high optical absorption
Absorption (electromagnetic radiation)
In physics, absorption of electromagnetic radiation is the way by which the energy of a photon is taken up by matter, typically the electrons of an atom. Thus, the electromagnetic energy is transformed to other forms of energy for example, to heat. The absorption of light during wave propagation is...
, then nearly all of the incident solar radiation (sunlight) will go into heating the bottom layer.
When solar energy is absorbed in the water, its temperature increases, causing thermal expansion
Thermal expansion
Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change in volume in response to a change in temperature.When a substance is heated, its particles begin moving more and thus usually maintain a greater average separation. Materials which contract with increasing temperature are rare; this effect is...
and reduced density. If the water were fresh, the low-density warm water would float to the surface, causing a convection current. The temperature gradient alone causes a density gradient that decreases with depth. However the salinity gradient forms a density gradient
Density Gradient
Density gradient is a spatial variation in density over an area. The term is used in the natural sciences to describe varying density of matter, but can apply to any quantity whose density can be measured...
that increases with depth, and this counteracts the temperature gradient, thus preventing heat in the lower layers from moving upwards by convection and leaving the pond. This means that the temperature at the bottom of the pond will rise to over 90 °C while the temperature at the top of the pond is usually around 30 °C. A natural example of these effects in a saline water body is Solar Lake
Solar Lake
Solar Lake is a saline desert lake located on the edge of the Red Sea, about 18 km south of Eilat in the Sinai Peninsula, Taba, Egypt, close to its borders with Israel...
in the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two...
of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
.
The heat trapped in the salty bottom layer can be used for many different purposes, such as the heating of buildings or industrial hot water or to drive an organic Rankine cycle
Organic Rankine Cycle
The Organic Rankine cycle is named for its use of an organic, high molecular mass fluid with a liquid-vapor phase change, or boiling point, occurring at a lower temperature than the water-steam phase change. The fluid allows Rankine cycle heat recovery from lower temperature sources such as...
turbine or Stirling engine
Stirling engine
A Stirling engine is a heat engine operating by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas, the working fluid, at different temperature levels such that there is a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work....
for generating electricity.
Advantages and disadvantages
- The approach is particularly attractive for rural areas in developing countries. Very large area collectors can be set up for just the cost of the clay or plastic pond liner.
- The evaporated surface water needs to be constantly replenished.
- The accumulating saltSaltIn chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
crystals have to be removed and can be both a valuable by-product and a maintenance expense. - No need of a separate collector for this thermal storage system.
Efficiency
The energy obtained is in the form of low-grade heat of 70 to 80 °C compared to an assumed 20 °C ambient temperature. According to the second law of thermodynamicsSecond law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...
(see Carnot-cycle), the maximum theoretical efficiency of a solar concentrator system with molten salt is: 1-(273+20)/(273+80)=17%. By comparison, a power plant's heat engine delivering high-grade heat at 800 °C would have a maximum theoretical limit of 73% for converting heat into useful work (and thus would be forced to divest as little as 27% in waste heat to the cold temperature reservoir at 20 °C). The low efficiency of solar ponds is usually justified with the argument that the 'collector', being just a plastic-lined pond, might potentially result in a large-scale system that is of lower overall levelised energy cost than a solar concentrating system
Solar thermal energy
Solar thermal energy is a technology for harnessing solar energy for thermal energy . Solar thermal collectors are classified by the United States Energy Information Administration as low-, medium-, or high-temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are flat plates generally used to heat...
.
Development
Further research is aimed at addressing the problems, such as the development of membrane ponds. These use a thin permeable membrane to separate the layers without allowing salt to pass through.Examples
The largest operating solar pond for electricity generation was the Beit HaAravaBeit HaArava
Beit HaArava is an Israeli settlement and kibbutz in the West Bank. Located near the Dead Sea and Jericho at the eponymous Beit HaArava Junction, the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 90, it falls under the jurisdiction of Megilot Regional Council...
pond built in Israel and operated up until 1988. It had an area of 210,000 m² and gave an electrical output of 5 MW.
The first solar pond in India (6000 sq. metres) was built at Bhuj. The project was sanctioned under the National Solar Pond Programme by the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources in 1987 and completed in 1993 after a sustained collaborative effort by TERI, the Gujarat Energy Development Agency, and the GDDC (Gujarat Dairy Development Corporation Ltd). The solar pond successfully demonstrated the expediency of the technology by supplying 80,000 litres of hot water daily to the plant. The Energy and Resources Institute
The Energy and Resources Institute
The Energy and Resources Institute, commonly known as TERI , established in 1974, is a research institute based in New Delhi focusing its research activities in the fields of energy, environment and sustainable development.-Introduction:TERI is an independent, not-for-profit, research institute...
provided all technical inputs and took up the complete execution of research, development, and demonstration. TERI operated and maintained this facility until 1996 before handing it over to the GDDC. The solar pond functioned effortlessly till the year 2000 when severe financial losses crippled GDDC. Subsequently, the Bhuj earthquake left the Kutch Dairy non-functional.
The 0.8 acres (3,237.5 m²) solar pond powering 20% of Bruce Foods Corporation's operations El Paso, Texas is the second largest in the U.S. It is also the first ever salt-gradient solar pond in the U.S.
See also
- Ice pondIce pondAn ice pond is a large volume of ice or snow produced and stored in the winter to be used for cooling/air conditioning in the summer. The best known experiment is the 'Princeton ice pond' by Ted Taylor in 1981. He then convinced the Prudential Insurance Company to use a bigger pond to provide air...
- Seasonal thermal storeSeasonal thermal storeA seasonal thermal store is a store designed to retain heat deposited during the hot summer months for use during colder winter weather...
- Thermal storage
- Deep lake water coolingDeep lake water coolingDeep lake water cooling uses cold water pumped from the bottom of a lake as a heat sink for climate control systems. Because heat pump efficiency improves as the heat sink gets colder, deep lake water cooling can reduce the electrical demands of large cooling systems where it is available...
- Cooling pondCooling pondA cooling pond is a man-made body of water primarily formed for the purpose of supplying cooling water to a nearby power plant or industrial facility such as a petroleum refinery, pulp and paper mill, chemical plant, steel mill or smelter...
- Salt evaporation pondSalt evaporation pondSalt evaporation ponds, also called salterns or salt pans, are shallow artificial ponds designed to produce salts from sea water or other brines. The seawater or brine is fed into large ponds and water is drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be subsequently harvested...