Submitted by

Dipin.M.S Roll No. 9 Reg. No. 89031200 Govt. Polytechnic College, Attingal

History

Discovered in Medve Lake in Transylvania in Hungary in late 1900s A fully functional unit was built in the 1980's by Enreco P/L at Mulka Station in South Australia. The first solar pond in India is Bhav Nagar in Gujarat and the first electricity producing solar pond was in Bhuj in Gujarat

Solar Pond in Bhuj

Introduction
Solar Ponds are an alternative source of harnessing the suns energy. Solar ponds are sized according to their functionality. For the proper working it needs a lot of sun light and salt water. Further development of solar ponds can lead to promote more applications.

Working Principle
Dissipation of Heat in a normal pond

In a typical fresh water pond when sun light penetrates the water it gets heated and release the heat to the atmosphere

 Constructional details of a Solar Pond

Sunlight incident on the salt pond.

The pond water become layered.

Working Diagram

Solar Ponds in India

Location Bhav Nagar, Gujarat Pondicherry Year 1971 1980 Area 1200 m2 1000m2 Salt Used Bittern NaCl

Bahv Nagar, Gujarat

IIT, Kharagpur IISc, Bangalore Bhuj, Gujarat

1980
1983 1984 1987

1600m2
1600m2 240m2 6000m2

Bittern
NaCl NaCl Bittern

Masam, Karnataka

1993

400m2

NaCl

Major Solar Ponds in the World

Name/Site Ein Boqck, Israel Beith Haarava, Israel Alice Spring El-paso, USA Power(kW) 150 5000 15 70 Pond Area(m2) 6250 250000 1600 3350 Operational period 1979-1986 1984-1996 1985-1989 1986-still operational

El-Paso Solar pond for the production of electricity

Management of Solar Ponds

Filling the pond

This technique is developed by Zengrando

and it is widely adapted In this technique saline solution is fed into lower layer of the pond

Maintenance of Brine transparency

Used for the controlling the algal growth

inside the pond which affect the brine transparency.

Top Zone Flushing

Scientist Sherman Lemberger suggested the Top

Zone Flushing technique Salt diffused from lower zone to upper zone results the decrease the salt content if the solar pond To reduce this fault removing of saline water in the top zone and inject the fresh water to the pond surface

Heat Extraction
An external tubular heat exchanger for heat

extraction from the solar pond. Mainly used heat exchanger was Titanium heat exchanger, Copper heat exchanger and Plastic heat exchanger Now a days polypropaline heat exchangers are used instead of other heat exchanger

Applications
Power Production Hot Water application in Agriculture Water Purification Water cooling

Water cooling tower

Advantages
The approach particularly attractive rural areas in developing country Very large area collector can be set up for just the cost of the clay or plastic pond liner. No need of a seperate collector for the thermal storage system Initial cost is less.

Disadvantage

The evaporated surface water needs to be constantly replaced The accumulating salt crystals have to be removed and which is maintenance expensive Liner leakage solar pond occur Corrosion of material using in a solar pond The main drawback is that they need a large area for large power production

Future Scope
Further research is aimed at addressing the problem such as development of membrane ponds Can be used as a alternative power source in rural area.

Conclusion
Overall, solar ponds are an effective renewable energy source and environmental friendly. Wide spread adaptation of this technology has not been successful yet The main drawback of the solar pond is the amount of land they require. Further development of solar ponds can be a partial answer for the power crises.

Reference
Wikipedia Galegroup.com www.solarponds.com eprints.iisc.ernet.in www.seminarprojects.com/Threadsolar-ponds