How do you transport solar power tower energy to a building that is 4 kms away?

Question

And is an area of 1 km^2 for a solar power tower enough to produce energy for five houses? can you make an approximation of how much it could supply?

Answer 1

If you want the heat energy, consider tracking mirrors at the site and solar collectors on the houses. If you want electric energy, that area is enough to support a traditional steam turbine, much more cost-effective than photovoltaic. That area is about 15 times the area that Solar One used to generate 10 megawatts in the Mohave Desert, so it could supply a theoretical maximum of 150 megawatts during peak sunshine. That's probably enough to match the demand of about 25,000 homes. Best bet would be to feed it to the electric power grid.

Answer 2

At 40 % efficiency and 1252 W/m^2 the maximum available energy for a square kilometer is
(0.4)(1,252 W/m^2)(10^6 m^2) = 500.8 MW if the entire array is normal to the incident sunlight on a clear day.

The average dwelling has electrical service of 100A at 240 VAC, or 24 KW, so 5 houses would need about 120 KW.

For energy transmission you need a (very large) capacitor or battery bank for energy storage, a motor-generator set (90% efficient as opposed to < 50% efficient for an inverter), a step-up transformer and step-down transformers.

Note that atmospheric attenuation of sunlight increases with both latitude and time from local Noon. Even on a clear day sunlight is available for at most 12 hr/da. It is also extremely expensive to "track" the Sun (keep the array perpendicular to the sunlight), especially so for such a large array.

Answer 3

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