Has anybody heard of this? www.greentower.net

apparently to be 1500m.That will beat the one planned in Australia at 1000 www.afriquenligne.fr/sa-firm-...807299785.html

Solar Tower for Namibia.


A new proposal for the construction of a solar tower capable of generating 400 MW of electricity has been approved by the Namibian government.

The solar tower, aptly named the “Greentower” will be 1.5 km (about 5,000 feet!) high and 280 m (918 feet) in diameter. The tower functions like a chimney. Air heated in an apron around the tower becomes relatively buoyant and wants to rise. The only path is up the chimney. Turbines on the ground or near the bottom of the tower convert the updraft into electricity.

In 1982, a small-scale experimental model of a solar chimney power plant was built under the direction of German engineer Jörg Schlaich in Manzanares, Ciudad Real, 150 km south of Madrid, Spain; the project was funded by the German government. The tower ran trouble-free for eight years, producing 50 kW of electricity, until it was decommissioned.

In recent years there has been renewed interest in the solar tower concept, a 1 km-high solar tower, capable of producing 200 MW is scheduled to be constructed by 2010 in Australia. (Project Link)

Turbines can be installed in a ring around the base of the tower, with a horizontal axis, as planned for the Australian project, or, as in the prototype in Spain, a single vertical axis turbine can be installed inside the chimney.

He adds that the Australian tower, as well as its Namibian counterpart, will be built out of reinforced concrete, using technology developed for building high-rise buildings.

“Several thermodynamics, structural, wind loading and power generation experts have developed an executive summary for a prefeasibility study for the Namibian project,” says intellectual property company Hahn & Hahn MD representative Alan Dunlop.

This Namibian project may be eligible for carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol and offers opportunities for countries to further develop solar tower technology.

Solar towers are relatively inefficient at converting sunlight to energy - about 1% of the sunlight falling on the apron is converted to electricity. Solar towers are inexpensive but inefficient.

(Disclosure: We are working on a solar tower design that is very efficient using concentrated solar power in a novel geometric configuration - we will be publishing schematics as soon as our lawyers give us the green light.)

Fascinating. There's no ways the Namibian Gov would fund this though. Here's the Wiki on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower

Kewl, but ugly :puke:

it got nothing to do with looking good.

I think its a flippin exellent idea & if they looking for private investors I'll be standing in line to put money there.

Namibia is hot, dry & almost always sunny. prefect location for it.

I agree and from what I can gather this is to help the SA power crisis as well

interesting. a 1,5km tall tower is however madness. That's taller than Table Mountain!

Where is this going to be located?

When will they start or is just an idea at the moment?

very interesting idea

Nice idea.

Didnt Eskom also look at doing this a while back? With the current power situation in South Africa why dont this company build it in the Northern Cape???????????

Its a blady expensive exercise, if they can put up their indepent factory to supply them with solar panels it may work out cheaper that way.

This will SO not happen. Even countries that actually have money have realised it is a waste of money.