Some of the major application of solar energy are as follows: (a) Solar water heating (b) Solar heating of buildings (c) Solar distillation (d) Solar pumping (e) Solar drying of agricultural and animal products (f) Solar furnaces (g) Solar cooking (h) Solar electric power generation (i) Solar therma Contact online >>
Some of the major application of solar energy are as follows: (a) Solar water heating (b) Solar heating of buildings (c) Solar distillation (d) Solar pumping (e) Solar drying of agricultural and animal products (f) Solar furnaces (g) Solar cooking (h) Solar electric power generation (i) Solar thermal power production (j) Solar green houses.
A solar water heating unit comprises a blackened flat plate metal collector with an associated metal tubing facing the general direction of the sun. The plate collector has a transparent glass cover above and a layer of thermal insulation beneath it.
The metal tubing of the collector is connected by a pipe to an insulated tank that stores hot water during cloudy days. The collector absorbs solar radiations and transfers the heat to the water circulating through the tubing either by gravity or by a pump.
When the building requires heat then from these collectors or storage devices, the heat is transferred by conventional equipment such as fan, ducts, air outlets, radiators and hot air registers etc. to warm up the living spaces of a building.
When the building does not require heat, the heated air or water from the collector can be moved to the heat storage device such as well insulated water tank or other heat holding material. For inclement days, an auxiliary heating system using gas, oil or electricity is required as a backup system.
In arid semi and or coastal areas there is scarcity of potable water. The abundant sunlight in these areas can be used for converting saline water into potable distilled water by the method of solar distillation. In this method, solar radiation is admitted through a transparent air tight glass cover into a shallow blackened basin containing saline water.
Solar radiation passes through the covers and is absorbed and converted into heat in the blackened surface causing the water to evaporate from the brine (impure saline water). The vapors produced get condensed to form purified water in the cool interior of the roof.
The condensed water flows down the sloping roof and is collected in the troughs placed at the bottom and from there into a water storage tank to supply potable distilled water in areas of scarcity, in colleges, school science laboratories, defense labs, petrol pumps, hospitals and pharmaceutical industries. Per liter distilled water cost obtained by this system is cheaper than distilled water obtained by other electrical energy-based processes.
In solar pumping, the power generated by solar-energy is utilized for pumping water for irrigation purposes. The requirement for water pumping is greatest in the hot summer months which coincide with the increased solar radiations during this period and so this method is most appropriate for irrigation purpose. During periods of inclement weather when solar radiations are low then the requirement for water pumping is also relatively less as the transpiration losses from the crops are also low.
This is a traditional method of utilising solar energy for drying of agricultural and animal products. Agricultural products are dried in a simple cabinet dryer which consists of a box insulated at the base, painted black on the inner side and covered with an inclined transparent sheet of glass.
At the base and top of the sides ventilation holes are provided to facilitate the flow of air over the drying material which is placed on perforated trays inside the cabinet. These perforated trays or racks are carefully designed to provide controlled exposure to solar radiations.
Solar drying, especially of fruits improves fruit quality as the sugar concentration increases on drying. Normally soft fruits are particularly vulnerable to insect attack as the sugar content increases on drying but in a fruit dryer considerable time is saved by quicker drying —minimizing gap the chances of insect attack.
The present practice of drying chilies by spreading them on the floor not only requires a lot of open space and manual labour for material handling but it becomes difficult to maintain its quality and taste unless drying is done in a controlled atmosphere. Moreover, the products being sun dried very often get spoiled due to sudden rains, dust storms or by birds. Besides, reports reveal that it is not possible to attain very low moisture content in the sun-dried chilies.
As a result, the chilies become prone to attack by fungi and bacteria. In sun-drying sometimes, the produce is over dried and its quality is lost. Solar energy operated dryer helps to overcome most of these disadvantages.
Other agricultural products commonly solar-dried are potato-chips, berseem, grains of maize and paddy, ginger, peas, pepper, cashew-nuts, timber and veneer drying and tobacco curing. Spray drying of milk and fish drying are examples of solar dried animal products.
In a Solar furnace, high temperature is obtained by concentrating the solar radiations onto a specimen using a number of heliostats (turn-able mirrors) arranged on a sloping surface. The solar furnace is used for studying the properties of ceramics at extremely high temperatures above the range measurable in laboratories with flames and electric currents.
Heating can be accomplished without any contamination and temperature can be easily controlled by changing the position of the material in focus. This is especially useful for metallurgical and chemical operations. Various property measurements are possible on an open specimen. An important future application of solar furnaces is the production of nitric acid and fertilizers from air.
A variety of fuel like coal, kerosene, cooking gas, firewood, dung cakes and agricultural wastes are used for cooking purposes. Due to the energy crisis, supply of these fuels are either deteriorating (wood, coal, kerosene, cooking gas) or are too precious to be wasted for cooking purposes (cow dung can be better used as manure for improving soil fertility). This necessitated the use of solar energy for cooking purposes and the development of solar cookers. A simple solar cooker is the flat plate box type solar cooker.
It consists of a well insulated metal or wooden box which is blackened from the inner side. The solar radiations entering the box are of short wavelength. As higher wavelength radiations are unable to pass through the glass covers, the re-radiation from the blackened interior to outside the box through the two glass covers is minimised, thereby minimising the heat loss.
The heat loss due to convection is minimised by making the box airtight. This is achieved by providing a rubber strip between the upper lid and the box for minimising the heat loss due to conduction, the space between the blackened tray and outer cover of the box is filled with an insulting material like glass wool, saw-dust, paddy husk etc.
When placed in sunlight, the solar rays penetrate the glass covers and are absorbed by the blackened surface thereby resulting in an increase in temperature inside the box. Cooking pots blackened from outside are placed in the solar box.
The uncooked food gets cooked with the heat energy produced due to increased temperature of the solar box. Collector area of such a solar cooker can be increased by providing a plane reflector mirror. When this reflector is adjusted to reflect the sun rays into the box, then a 15°C to 25°C rise in temperature is achieved inside the cooker box.
The solar cooker requires neither fuel nor attention while cooking food and there is no pollution, no charring or overflowing of food and the most important advantage is that nutritional value of the cooked food is very high as the vitamins and natural tastes of the food are not destroyed.
Maintenance cost of the solar cooker is negligible. The main disadvantage of the solar cooker is that the food cannot be cooked at night, during cloudy days or at short notice. Cooking takes comparatively more time and chapattis cannot be cooked in a solar cooker.
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