Wind turbines

[freebeard]

Maybe it's time to try solar chimneys?

www.mdpi.com: Solar Chimney Components: Construction and Materials

Figure 6. (a) Glass roof of the prototype plant at Manzanares, Spain [18]; (b) the collector design [5].

The majority of the solar radiation passes through the collector, and a fraction of the radiation is directly absorbed by the system’s air. The soil and the system’s air emit long-wavelength radiation due to the solar radiation that is absorbed and trapped, and due to the collector, which is almost opaque to this long-wavelength radiation (transmittance 0.01), generating a greenhouse effect. The radiation effect under the collector increases the system temperature (Figure 6b and Figure 7a) [5]. Continuous heat transfer occurs between the collector, the system’s air, and the ground (Figure 7b) [19].

Power and vegetables from a single source. Until it snows?

[aerohead]

Haven't heard anything about them is a long time. A massive installation was planned in Australia, but never heard any follow up reporting.

[Piotrsko]

Where in Australia? Going there next month, could possibly attempt research

[freebeard]

Quick search first result:

www.dw.com: World’s Tallest Solar Chimney Going Up Down Under

The skyline of the small town of Mildura in northern Victoria in the rugged Australian outback is about to change drastically.
....
At its planned height of 1 kilometer (.62 mile) and a diameter of 170 metres, the solar tower will have wind speeds of 54 kilometres per hour that will produce an estimated 200 megawatts of electricity – enough to supply 200,000 households per year, says Schiel.

Construction on the solar power station is expected to begin by mid 2003 and the plant is expected to be up and running by 2005.

The (steel tower) one in Spain blew over in the wind, this one was to be concrete. The only reasonable design I saw was an inflatable tower. That way you can have sections inflated with Helium.

[redpoint5]

I'm looking forward to 2005 when it's completed.

[aerohead]

Some sort of 'reality' must have intruded onto their plans.
I suspect that, conventional, horizontal axis turbines have a distinct advantage with respect to starting torque, and un-mutilated flow field at each blade.
Their chord 'beam' web depth aligns more with their operational orientation, whereas with a vertical axis, they'd be inclined to 'fold' and buckle under the force of gravity ( we don't use I-beams turned on their sides ).
Winds blow at night as well.

[freebeard]

Some sort of 'reality' must have intruded onto their plans.

Reality comes in assortment?

I took a few moments to investigate; the failure is obscured by another project in 2013 that failed as well. The Victoria AU solar chinmey project was superceded by a solar concentrator that collapsed financially. From Wikipedia:

The Mildura Solar Concentrator Power Station was a proposed 100 megawatts (130,000 hp) concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar PV system to be built at Carwarp, near Mildura, Victoria, Australia.[1] It was proposed by Solar Systems in 2006,[2] which was acquired by Silex Systems in 2010. A 1.5 MW demonstration plant was completed in April 2013. Construction of the larger facility was expected to commence in 2014 and be completed in 2017.[3][4] However, the expansion plan was abandoned in August 2014 due to a number of factors, including low wholesale electricity prices, a lack of commitment to clean energy by the Australian government and uncertainty surrounding the Renewable Energy Target (RET) in Australia.[5][6

I appears that solar is over installed in Australia: www.smh.com.au: A world-first power plant aimed at solving Mildura’s rhombus of regret

The sunlight shines especially bright in Mildura. This should be the perfect place to build the huge solar farms we need if we’re going to green our electricity grid – but solar farms here have made huge losses, some forced to operate at half-capacity and others unable to run at all, as the ageing and weak grid struggled to handle the new influx of solar power.

Among industry figures, Mildura’s electricity grid has been nicknamed the rhombus of regret, but a little-known Australian company hopes to change that with a world-first solar hydropower plant.

Now they are trying to cover nighttime need by using the solar electricity to chill water and the heat captured to store hot water.

RayGen’s solution is known as a thermal-hydro battery. Hot water is stored in one tank. Solar electricity is used to chill another tank to zero degrees.