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Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Lj. (FSLJ)
  • Hypothetical replacement of Slovenian coal-fired thermal power plants with photo-voltaic pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant [Elektronski vir]
    Kuštrin, Igor ; Senegačnik, Andrej
    In order to stop exploiting fossil fuels and to, at the same time, cover the ever growing energy demand, human society will need to obtain energy from other resources. Most obvious option is solar ... energy which is a sustainable, renewable, environmentally acceptable and practically unlimited resource. Humanity already possesses many technologies like photovoltaics, wind- and hydro-turbines etc. for transformation of direct and indirect solar energy into electricity. Electricity is one of the most useful forms of energy. It can be converted to almost any other useful form: mechanical work, heat, sound, light etc. Unfortunately, its major deficiency is its inability to be stored in large quantities in its original form. Before being stored, it needs to be converted to some other form of energy like chemical, potential, etc. Direct solar radiation and solar-radiation-induced energy flows are intermittent and never synchronized with the energy demand. Therefore, the surplus electricity produced from these sources during favorable periods needs to be temporarily stored. In this paper, one of the technically feasible solutions for complete replacement of Sloveniaʼs coal-generated electricity with electricity from insolation is presented. Geographical possibilities, the most important technical boundary conditions, dimensions and costs for such a power plant are presented along with the dependency of the costs and dimensions on the extent of the required energy-storage capacity. One of the main conclusions is that the complete replacement of coalfired thermal power plants with photo-voltaic pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant will require huge constructions: water reservoirs with volumes up to 16 million cubic meters with head difference of about 400 m along with areas of up to 100 square kilometers covered with photovoltaic panels.
    Source: SimTerm 2019 [Elektronski vir] : energy - ecology - efficiency : proceedings (F. 127-137)
    Type of material - conference contribution
    Publish date - 2019
    Language - english
    COBISS.SI-ID - 17001499

    Link(s):

    http://simterm.masfak.ni.ac.rs/docs/proceedings/simterm_2019-proceedings.zip

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