Storing Solar Energy – Utilizing Concentrating Solar Power Technologies

There are several CSP or concentrating solar power technologies. Usually CSP refers to large solar thermal electricity producing plants. Merely because with the thermal nature of this unique type of solar plant, the particular heat energy can be saved a lot more conveniently than electrical energy, increasing the ability to dispatch energy as well as minimizing abrupt fluctuations in output with regards to grid operators.

Central receiver is the CSP concept when a good-sized area of sun-tracking heliostats can be used to redirect and concentrate sunlight onto a tower positioned single receiver. The actual heat transfer liquid in the tower system is either water/steam or even nitrate salt, plus the latter typically features storage containers.

A majority of these nitrate salts normally consist of 60% NaNO3 and 40% KNO3 and also have extremely high freezing temperatures, well over 250 degrees Fahrenheit that could be maintained using natural gas boilers along with strategic heating conduits along with the piping pathways. In case the temperatures fall below the limit, the salts freeze solid within the pipes as well as tanks, which will make restarting the system rather challenging.

One good thing about tower technologies would be that the distances between the heat collection and the extraction, tend to be very short, on the order of hundreds of meters as well as maintaining greater temperatures is more controllable. This storage process can be built to meet the needs of the utility grid and 3-16 hours of full generator load are realistic.

Parabolic trough techniques make use of a field of linear parabolic collectors spread out horizontally, as opposed to vertically, over hundreds of acres in order to focus sunshine onto long tube receivers. The heat transfer solution is normally synthetic oil, which has a freezing point of nearly 55 degrees Fahrenheit. However that is a more reasonable minimum temperature to keep within the system across several kilometers of piping.

Natural gas boilers retain a minimal temperature and keep the particular field circulating throughout the night or over cast days. Across the complete system there exists a substantial amount of heat transfer fluid inside the piping, and this technology provides approximately 30 minutes of inherent storage within a basic design. However, a two-tank molten salt storage process, with a heat exchanger between the liquid and the salts, may be included to achieve several hours of storage.

Trough plants equipped with storage improve the size of the mirror field proportionally to the storage and ensure that one part is dedicated to day-time generation and the other to recharging the storage, which is then discharged as the sun is going down.

Computer Towers Are Essential For the Desktop

Computer towers are extremely common. No, this is not your conventional telecommunication tower for the mobile network or the television. Rather, you will find this tower in almost all homes, and certainly in all commercial establishments. These are the boxes that you find beside your computer desktop. Also known as the CPU or the Central Processing Unit, this is actually an enclosure to hold several important components of your computer.

Computer Towers Explained, and Their Importance

There are two distinct part of the desktop computer – the monitor and the CPU. The monitor isn’t really that important. It is merely a display device, using which you can see your files, websites when you browse online, and off course movies too when you play them. Though the computer will not work without the monitor, but the truth is, it has got nothing to do with the technology behind the machine.

The CPU (a term for the computer tower that was used frequently earlier) on the other hand is extremely important. It is the CPU, or what is contained inside it, that actually makes the computer work. This enclosure or the computer tower holds many extremely important components such as the RAM, the battery, the CD/DVD drive, the hard drive, a floppy drive, optical drive, the motherboard, a fan to prevent the computer from over-heating, and many others like this without which the computer just cannot function. Even the switch to start the computer is located here. This button is usually located at the front of the tower so that the user can press it easily. At the back of the tower, there are various places where the wires from the monitor, and power source, and the UPS go in.

So it can be said that the tower isn’t itself very important – but it does a very important job nonetheless. It protects the most important components of the desktop.

Computer Towers and Their Different Types

The tower is often referred to by many other names such as the computer case, box, chasis, housing, or the desktop tower. You can use whichever name you like, but you would be referring to the same thing. These towers are available in all kinds of sizes. There are small mini-towers, and there are medium sized towers. And there are those that can be very big. How big a tower or case will be will depend on what it must contain. Towers are also made of different materials. It could be made of plastic, aluminum or steel. What is the future of computer towers? Many people have questioned this, and they say that it isn’t too bright. With technology improving, we today have laptops and palmtops that do not need the CPU or the computer tower. In these machines, there’s just one unit – the monitor and components are all placed here. But the fact is, the laptop or the palmtop still can’t be used for everything. For instance, designers face problems using them when they are making their designs, and writers too complain that the keyboards in these units are not good for typing.

So as things stand today, computer towers are here to stay, at least for the time being.