Decarbonization Avenue : Concentrated Solar Power

Innovation Insights

Water recycling in concentrated solar power plants

For CSP plants, water consumption is undergoing increasing scrutiny particularly in dry and arid regions with water scarcity conditions. Significant amount of water has to be used for parabolic trough mirror cleaning to maintain high mirror reflectance and optical efficiency in sandy environments. For this specific purpose, solar collectors are washed once or twice every week and about 5 million gallons of demineralized water is utilized every year without further recovery. The produced waste water from a CSP plant contains the soiling i.e. accumulated dust and some amount of organic contaminants, as indicated by our analysis of waste water samples from the solar field.

Relevant for

  • Operations & maintenance professional
  • Thermodynamics & heat sciences professional
  • HVAC engineer
  • Solar power professional

Innovation sector

  • Waste management
  • Water

Web Resources

Water recovery in a concentrated solar power plant

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Industry


Concentrated Solar Power research groups cut water use by 70%

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Water Issues of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Electricity in the U.S. Southwest

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Fraunhofer ISE Develops Solutions for Optimized Water Use in Solar Thermal Power Plants

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Innovation Category

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Industry


Concentrating Solar Power and Water Issues in the U.S. Southwest

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Think Water When Designing CSP Plants

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Innovation Category

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Air emissions, water and wastewater treatment at CSP

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Innovation Category

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Industry


Domain

Renewable Energy

Water

Type of innovation

Core sciences & engineering

Stakeholders

University researcher

Corporate researcher

Startup or entrepreneur

Solution provider

Industry

Solar energy