Basic Design
Size and power impression
Cost structure
Project structure
Applications
Components
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The Solar Bowl can be implemented on a variety of scales with the same applications are more common CSP.
Solar Cooking Applications
Solar cooking is normally associated with hanging a pot inside a dish. The heat from the sun can also be captured and transported away from the site of the dish or bowl to either heat storage or the cooking facilities. The Operational Solar Bowl at for instance Auroville is used as a replacement for diesel burning boilers. It is used to prepare meals every day. This type of application is one of the least complicated as it can use the output steam directly.
Steam Turbine Electricity Generation
A solar Bowl can produce steam with temperatures ranging between 300-500 degrees celcius (573-932 Fahrenheit). The pressure is enough to drive a steam turbine and generate electricity. The Crosbython (20 meter diameter) bowl was designed to deliver 0,5 MWe, planning 10 bowls for 5 MWe in total.
Process Heat Source
Any situation where heat is required the Solar Bowl design deserves to be considered. On example is factories that cook foodstuff during or before canning, or that need heat for pasturization of milk.
Cooling
Absorption Cooling is a process by which heat is used to reset the chemical proces used to cool.
Steam Jet Refrigiration is a process by which steam is used to create a low pressure environment in which water evaporates, extracting heat from the remaining water (which becomes the coolant). It has been used in trains.
Another option is to use steam pressure to drive traditionaly electrically driven airconditioners.
More solar powered airconditioning references.
Airconditioning analysis
Desalination
Desalination applications only need watter to evaporate and can use heat exchangers and air cooling to recycle the available solar thermal heat. A 15 meter bowl can turn 450 liters of water into hot steam each day, which means it can potentially desalinate quite a lot more.
Wade [9] performed a comparison of water production costs by thermal distillation processes (MSF (Multi stage flash), MED (Multi effect)) and reverse osmosis (RO, RO + Brine Booster). For this, he carried out a study with four plants with the same desalting capacity (31.822 m3/day), operating in the Mediterranean area and with a fuel cost of 1.7€GJ, (table below). The cost of energy of 1,7 Euro per Gigajoule is very low, it equates to o,611 cent per Kwh. The current price is around 10 ct.
| MSF | 1.18 €/m3 |
| MED | 1.08 €/m3 |
| RO | 0.93 €/m3 |
| RO + brine booster | 0.85 €/m3 |
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