The Multichannel Solar Chimney - commercial scale
Summary
A radically modified solar chimney is described with a rectangular chimney and rectangular solar collector drawing ambient air through a nozzle and turbine. The chimney is of low height and partitioned into many discrete, parallel flow channels of good slenderness ratio to provide smooth flow. By careful choice of dimensions, configurations have been devised of height 5 to 100m with a target efficiency of 50% for conversion of solar into kinetic energy. The author suggests experimental work on models of height 5m and 20m. If successful, the rectangular framework allows multiple units to be built in parallel in large assemblies with a generating potential of up to 160 MW/km2.