Solar Potential in the United States

Nicholas Fornaciari
Professor McMillan
Math2025-02
November 28, 2017
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Purpose
Each year nearly 38.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide is pumped into the air from burning
fossil fuels. When fossil fuels are combusted, they release energy that is commonly turned into
heat, electricity or power for transportation. With the rise in technology, the most versatile
production of fossil fuels has become electricity, which can be turned into heat and kinetic
energy. However, the way electricity is currently produced is inefficient, and harmful to the
environment, it takes about one pound of coal to generate one kilowatt hour (kwh) of electricity.
For every 2,000 pounds of coal around 5,720 pounds of carbon dioxide is generated, meaning for
every pound of coal that is burned it will produce 2.86 pounds of carbon dioxide(Johnson). With
most of the world relying on coal, and other fossil fuels, to produce electricity, it is not feasible
to simply stop using them, without a viable substitution.
There is a very viable substitution to fossil fuels and its earths main source of energy, the
sun; each second of each day energy from the sun that is not photosynthesized is wasted.
However, with ingenuity and engineering mankind has been able to capture the energy from the
sun without photosynthesis. The most common way being solar panels which work by allowing
photons, or particles of light, to knock electrons free from atoms, generating a flow of electricity.
The other interesting, and more effective, way to generate electricity is through concentrating
solar energy. Concentrating solar power plants use mirrors to concentrate the energy from the
sun to drive traditional steam turbines or engines that create electricity. Where solar panels and
concentrating solar power differ is in their ability to produce energy during the night. Solar
panels are unable to produce energy during the night, because they are powered by on demand
photonic kinetic energy. While concentrating solar systems redirect the energy to one point,
allowing for energy to be stored in the form of molten salt. Though concentrating solar power
plants are not as developed as solar panels they still have the potential to produce mass amounts
of electricity.
Concentrating solar has been proven to work, however only one was ever produced in the
USA. The solar One was a pilot solar-thermal project built in the Mojave Desert just east of
Barstow, CA, USA. Solar One's method of collecting energy was based on concentrating the
sun's energy onto a common focal point to produce heat to run a steam turbine generator. It had
hundreds of large mirror assemblies, or heliostats, that track the sun, reflecting the solar energy
onto a tower where a black receiver absorbed the heat. The project produced 10 MW of
electricity using 1,818 heliostats of 40 m² reflective surface area each, with a total area of 72,650
m². Solar One was converted into Solar Two, by adding a second ring of 108 larger 95 m²
heliostats around the existing Solar One, totaling 1926 heliostats with a total area of 82,750 m².
This gave Solar Two the ability to produce 10 megawatts: enough to power an estimated 7,500
homes. Solar Two used molten salt, a combination of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium
nitrate, as an energy storage medium instead of oil or water as with Solar One. This helped in
energy storage during brief interruptions in sunlight due to clouds. The molten salt also allowed
the energy to be stored in large tanks for future use such as night time (CPS).
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Information
Concentrating solar power use mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto receivers
that collect solar energy and convert it to heat. Thermal energy can then be used to produce
electricity via a turbine or heat engine driving a generator. Because CSP technologies collect
solar energy and convert it to thermal energy that can be stored before powering a generator,
they can be used either as a flexible provider of electricity, such as a natural gas “Peaker” plant,
or as a baseload source of electricity similar to a traditional nuclear or coal plant (DOE).
There are three main concentrating solar power systems: Linear concentrator systems,
Dish/Engine systems, and power towers.
(Figure 1)

Linear Concentrator System

This method uses flat or U-shaped mirrors. The
mirrors are lined up in a north-south direction and
they follow the Sun as it moves from east to west.
Instead of focusing light at a single point, the light is
directed along a pipe containing the liquid to be
heated (NASA).
(Figure 2)

Dish/Engine System
This method uses dish-shaped mirrors, like shiny
satellite dishes. Each dish focuses light into a single
narrow beam directed at its own small generator.
Here, every dish has a generator (NASA).

(Figure 3)

Power Towers (Concentrating Solar)

This method uses many mirrors named heliostats.
These mirrors are all directed at one single point—a
tall tower containing the liquid to be heated (NASA).
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Data
The map (Figure 4) provides the monthly averages of the daily total solar resource
information on grid cells of approximately 40 km by 40 km in size. The insolation values
represent the resource available to concentrating systems that track the sun throughout the day.
Such systems include concentrating solar power stations such as trough collectors or dishes.
(NREL)

(Figure 4)

The data in figure 4 was used in this project to obtain data over the surface of the united
states to further interpret the data. A 3-D map was created to perceive the true scale of the
concentrating solar potential across the United States. This data can be used to further the
development of concentrating solar energy plants across the united states.
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Process
After obtaining the Concentrating solar resource map of the United States, the image had
𝑘𝑊ℎ
to be turned into data points. The map gave a legend of the value of each color in terms of 𝑚2
.
𝑑𝑎𝑦
Using this information, I set the map as a background in excel, and entered each value manually.
The result can be seen below in Figure 5
(Figure 5)

Since all the data

(11,550 cells) would
not fit on the screen
with the background
picture this is all the
data points with a
black background
and white text
zoomed in 15%

After entering the data into excel I utilized MATLAB to create a 3-D graph of the data.
By using the code below in Figure 6.
(Figure 6)
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Interpretation
(Figure 7)

Figure 7 is the top view of the 3-D graph producing a 2-D view of the concentrating solar energy
over the USA. Where the dark red is the highest potential energy and the dark blue is the lowest.
This view of the graph shows the distribution of energy potential over the USA well.
(Figure 8)

Figure 8 is the 3-D graph of the data, which effectively shows the change in potential
over the United States. The graph shows the highest potential, the pinnical of the graph, is
concentrated in the lower regions of California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado; and the upper
regions of Arizona and New Mexico. This area, the South West region, of the united states
would make a good location for mass solar farming.
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(Figure 9)

However, since concentrating solar energy is costly, good is not enough. To see the ideal
location for mass solar farming the 3-D graph can be simplified to a contour map (Figure 9). The
contour map effectually demonstrations the ideal region in the United States. The darkest red line
outlines the area of the ideal location for concentrating energy plants.
(Figure 10)

Figure 10 shows the 3-D graph from the East to West coasts of the USA; this graph not
only shows the change in potential but also illustrates that farming in the East would not be very
efficient due to the low potential.
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Analysis
To reduce rising temperatures, we must either reduce the consumption of electricity down
to 0 or stop using fossil fuels. With most of the world heavily reliant on electricity it isn’t
practical to eliminate electricity, but with numerous alternatives to fossil fuels it is only logical to
replace fossil fuels. As shown in the graphs concentrating solar is a viable substitution, take for
example just the solar potential of Arizona. Which was calculated by summing the concentrated
𝑘𝑊ℎ
solar potential of Arizona which came out to be 1753.75 𝑚2
, however the units of the number
𝑑𝑎𝑦
don’t help interpret the electricity produced. So, then I took that number and multiplied it by the
𝑘𝑊ℎ
area of Arizona in terms of meter squared to get 5.17802*1014 , which means for every day
𝑑𝑎𝑦
5.17802*1014 kWh of electricity is produced. Now compare this number to the consumption of
𝑘𝑊ℎ
electricity in the United States each year which is 3.913*1012 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟 . The production of electricity
could be substituted from fossil fuels to Concentrating solar energy, with an outstanding surplus.
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Citations

Johnson, Charles. Carbon Dioxide Emission Factors for Coal,

www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/co2_article/co2.html.

CPS. “Solar One - Solar Two.” CSP World, 1 Apr. 1982, cspworld.org/cspworldmap/solar-one

solar-two.

DOE. “Concentrating Solar Power.” Department of Energy, energy.gov/eere/solar/concentrating

solar-power.

NASA, climatekids.nasa.gov/concentrating-solar/.

NREL. “Solar Maps Development: How the Maps Were Made.” Solar Maps Development: How

the Maps Were Made | Geospatial Data Science | NREL, www.nrel.gov/gis/solar-map

development.html.