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Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy or electrical energy for use in industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. The first installation of solar thermal energy equipment occurred in the Sahara Desert approximately in 1910 when a steam engine was run on steam produced by sunlight. Because liquid fuel engines were developed and found more convenient, the Sahara project was abandoned, only to be revisited several decades later.〔(American Inventor Uses Egypt's Sun for Power; Appliance Concentrates the Heat Rays and Produces Steam, Which Can Be Used to Drive Irrigation Pumps in Hot Climates )〕 Solar thermal collectors are classified by the United States Energy Information Administration as low-, medium-, or high-temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are flat plates generally used to heat swimming pools. Medium-temperature collectors are also usually flat plates but are used for heating water or air for residential and commercial use. High-temperature collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors or lenses and are generally used for fulfilling heat requirements up to 300 deg C / 20 bar pressure in industries, and for electric power production. Two categories include Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) for fulfilling heat requirements in industries, and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) when the heat collected is used for power generation. CST and CSP are not replaceable in terms of application. The 377 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility is the largest solar power plant in the world, located in the Mojave Desert of California. Other large solar thermal plants include the SEGS installation (354 MW), also in the Mojave, as well as the Solnova Solar Power Station (150 MW), the Andasol solar power station (150 MW), and Extresol Solar Power Station (100 MW), all in Spain. ==Low-temperature solar heating and cooling systems== Systems for utilizing low-temperature solar thermal energy include means for heat collection; usually heat storage, either short-term or interseasonal; and distribution within a structure or a district heating network. In some cases more than one of these functions is inherent to a single feature of the system (e.g. some kinds of solar collectors also store heat). Some systems are passive, others are active (requiring other external energy to function). Heating is the most obvious application, but solar cooling can be achieved for a building or district cooling network by using a heat-driven absorption or adsorption chiller (heat pump). There is a productive coincidence that the greater the driving heat from insulation, the greater the cooling output. In 1878, Auguste Mouchout pioneered solar cooling by making ice using a solar steam engine attached to a refrigeration device.〔Butti and Perlin (1981), p.72〕 In the United States, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for over 25% (4.75 EJ) of the energy used in commercial buildings and nearly half (10.1 EJ) of the energy used in residential buildings. Solar heating, cooling, and ventilation technologies can be used to offset a portion of this energy. In Europe, since the mid-1990s about 125 large solar-thermal district heating plants have been constructed, each with over 500 m2 (5400 ft2) of solar collectors. The largest are about 10,000 m2, with capacities of 7 MW-thermal and solar heat costs around 4 Eurocents/kWh without subsidies.〔name="sdh">SDH (2011). (Supplying Renewable Zero-Emission Heat ). The SDH Project, of Intelligent Energy Europe.〕 40 of them have nominal capacities of 1 MW-thermal or more. The Solar District Heating program (SDH) has participation from 14 European Nations and the European Commission, and is working toward technical and market development, and holds annual conferences.〔SDH - Solar District Heating program. (Website ). (Europe)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Solar thermal energy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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