Solar power technologies for sustainable electricity generation - A review

Most of the energy generated globally utilize fossil fuels involving the emission of environmentally hazardous carbon dioxide and depletion of fossil fuel resources. The continuous variation in fuel prices has added a major concern on its sustainable use for future energy requirements. In order to minimize the environmental degradation during energy production process due to emissions of hazardous gases, the utilization of renewable energy resources can make the energy use clean as well as sustainable. Due to an ever increasing demand of clean energy, a sharp rise in the utilization of naturally available solar energy has been observed. Currently, there are several possible routes for solar energy technological developments. In order to effectively utilize the solar power system, one needs to know the technology and its suitability according to the requirements and nature of usage. In this article, different solar power technologies have been reviewed which can be utilized for the global sustainable electric power generation. Major emphasize has been on solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies. Their types, mechanism, efficiency and cost factors have been discussed. It has been observed that solar PV being more commercially developed and mature technology is suited for both small and large scale applications while CSP technology despite being expensive yield higher economic returns and is suited for large scale applications. Every solar power technology has its own advantage and disadvantage and their preferred usage is basically dependent on the specific case and given conditions. It has also been observed that solar energy, which is a fairly stable and consistently available source of clean energy has the significant potential to cater ever increasing world electricity requirements. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.