Describe two concentrated solar power systems, how they work, and their potential for providing power

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The solar-trough collector system has "collectors that are long, trough-shaped reflectors tilted toward the Sun. The curvature of the trough is such that all the sunlight hitting the collector is reflected onto a pipe running down the center of the system. Oil or some other heat-absorbing fluid circulating through the pipe is thus heated to very high temperatures. The heated fluid is passed through a heat exchanger to boil water and produce steam for driving a turbogenerator. The potential for the solar-trough system is quite good because the cost of producing a kilowatt-hour is barely more than the cost from coal-fired facilities. These facilities need to be located where there is plenty of sunlight.
Another system is the power tower. "A power tower is an array of Sun-tracking mirrors that focuses the sunlight falling on several acres of land onto a receiver mounted on a tower in the center of the area. The receiver transfers the heat energy collected to a molten-salt liquid, which then flows either to a heat exchanger to drive a conventional turbogenerator or to a tank . . . to store the heat for later use."