Student invents solar tower storage system

An engineering student claims to have found a way to store solar energy – the Holy Grail of solar technology.

Claus Volkening, 23, of the University of Portsmouth, has designed and laboratory-tested a solar updraft tower that uses water storage tanks to solve the problem of existing solar power plants which only generate electricity when the sun shines.

Existing solar updraft towers work by collecting heat energy from the sun and sending the warm air up through a tower which houses a turbine. Volkening's model siphons off some of this energy and uses it to heat water – energy which is later released to keep the turbine turning at night.

"I wanted to find a way of generating solar power at night and found that by using water tanks to store the sun's energy through the day, I could smooth out the energy available from a solar power plant," said Volkening.

"Mine is the first working model that has proven this can be done – though more work needs to be done, including an investigation of other materials to be used as storage elements before it could be used as a blueprint for solar updraft tower plants around the world."

The scale model is based on a 1km-high tower surrounded by glass or plastic above water tanks across a 16km square area to re-create a greenhouse effect.

Dr James Buick, who teaches Volkening at Portsmouth, said: "The technology behind solar updraft tower power plants is simple and they can be made from materials available anywhere in the world, which means, unlike other technologies, they are suitable for less-developed countries."