Saturday 10 August 2013 | By: Amandine Ronny Montegerai

Solar Updraft Tower Power Plant



A solar updraft tower power plant – sometimes also called 'solar chimney' or just ‘solar tower’ – is a solar thermal power plant utilizing a combination of solar air collector and central updraft tube to generate a solar induced convective flow which drives pressure staged turbines to generate electricity.

Design Concept and Mathematical Principles
www.debarel.com/BSB_Library/solar_updraft.pdf

An Australian company named EnviroMission is launching a renewable energy project in Arizona that will take advantage of the state’s abundant solar resources. By 2015, the company plans to erect a massive solar updraft tower, roughly 2625 feet tall, which will be able to put out about 200 megawatts.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/green-technology/arizona-getting-colossal-solar-updraft-tower-in-2015/

In 1903, Isidoro Cabanyes, a colonel in the Spanish army, proposed a solar chimney power plant in the magazine La energía eléctrica. Another early description was published in 1931 by German author Hanns Günther. Beginning in 1975, Robert E. Lucier applied for patents on a solar chimney electric power generator; between 1978 and 1981 patents (since expired) were granted in Australia, Canada,Israel, and the USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower