a) What is concentrated solar thermal?
Concentrated Solar Thermal generates electricity by concentrating the sunlight on a receiver. The heat generated by the receiver is used to convert into electricity. In the past concentrated solar thermal was more expensive and operated at lower efficiencies. GAP solar Pvt. Ltd. used innovative ideas in order to cut down the costs of CST and making it more efficient at much lower cost than PV panels.
b) How is CST better than PV panels?
Photovoltaic or PV systems convert sunlight into electricity directly. Issues with photovoltaic system is that they provide very less efficiency below 20% and storing electricity in batteries is very expensive, requires constant replacement and is polluting whereas concentrated solar thermal can provide higher efficiencies and heat storage is much cheaper and nonpolluting.
c) How do we plan to solve the existing issues in solar plants?
Solar plants currently contain several issues such as high cost, low efficiency due to low operating temperatures, power storage issues and round the clock power generation. GAP Solar aims at solving all these issues with innovative ideas. We have created a concentrated solar thermal plant which aims at increasing the power output generated at very low cost. We also solve the power storage issue which is cost effective and innovative, this will help us in providing electricity around the clock easily. Instead of going with the traditional PV panels for our solar arrays we are using concentrated solar thermal technology that yields better efficiency. Operating temperatures in excess of 1000K are possible due to the unique multi-layer vacuum heat shield, the dual piping design allows for thermal expansion and contraction, self-cleaning dishes, and dust reduction technology. We also use a new and more economical and environment friendly non phase change heat storage method instead of using molten salts or lithium batteries which are expensive and not environment friendly.
d) What are the measures taken to reduce cost and increase efficiency of the plant?
The main problems with generating electricity with solar energy is the low efficiency, high cost of the plant, storage issues, and around the clock generation. We have taken different measures to solve each and every problem. We use our patented technology to increase efficiency by using innovative dish designs and heat storage unit. Costs have been reduced in several manner such as reducing labor cost, material cost, inventing economical storage and cleaning mechanism, etc.