Cooling Towers as Solar Towers in Thermal Power Plants - A Conceptual Approach

Large size cooling towers are used in the Thermal and Nuclear power plants to lower the temperature of hot water received from condensers. These field erected Cooling towers are usually much larger in size either hyperboloid structures that can be up to 200 meters (660 ft) tall and 100 meters (330 ft) in diameter, or rectangular structures that can be over 40 meters (130 ft) tall and 80 meters (260 ft) long. The large exterior surface of these tower’s body can be used to install the number of solar PV panels to capture the maximum amount of solar energy to generate the electricity. Thus, power plants can generate the much more electricity by cogenerating the conventional and non-conventional energy sources. With this understanding, the concept looks into potentially optimizing the way the electricity is generated in power plants. A feasibility study of this concept would be of great interest, because such a study could point to the optimal way of capturing solar energy with the use of exterior surface area of cooling towers for the installation of solar panels by saving land area.