We use the words thermal solar power to describe any system designed to convert solar radiation into thermal energy. It is one of the major players in the solar power market and has huge untapped potentials.

The field of thermal solar power is large, and ranges from a simple system to heat your water tank, up to full fledged steam power facilities in use today. With a little thought, one can imagine a wide variety of applications for thermal solar technologies.

For most folks, thermal solar power will be limited to heating up a hot water tank, or storing heat for the workshop or house. These systems are inexpensive to incorporate, especially when designing a new home.

Other possibilities exist with pebble bed heat exchangers, which are designed to store excess thermal energy. These heat exchangers give our systems some operating flexibility. With this reservoir of heat, we can consider different applications for our thermal solar power system.

Pebble bed heat exchangers can be used in a variety of ways. They can be wall mounted units, or embedded in the floor. They can provide the heat source for everything from a family room, to a workshop, greenhouse, or dry sauna installation. They have good aesthetic qualities, being composed of natural materials, and can be incorporated in an attractive way into any home.

The typical operating temperature for most thermal solar power systems will be between 100F and 180F. In good solar climates these temperatures can be easily achieved with popular off the shelf equipment. With more specialized equipment we can go in excess of 250F, and with high performance industrial equipment over 700 degrees is possible. These high performance systems are usually for making steam, but incorporating them into other processes is also possible.

Solar collectors are designed to achieve a certain operating temperature. Flat plate and evacuated tube collectors are very effective at lower system temperatures. Parabolic trough and concentrating collectors are required for higher system temperatures. The solar collector is quite possibly the most important component in your thermal solar power system. It is the thermodynamic engine and should be selected thoroughly and carefully.

The lifeblood of the thermal solar power design is the circulating fluid. The circulating fluid is heated in the solar collector, and then pumped to all the system users. This fluid is typically oil, glycol, or water which is matched to the system temperatures and equipment in use.

Anyone seriously interested in energy independence should start with thermal solar power technology. The components are simple and inexpensive. If you could identify your climate as having reasonable amounts of Sun, then thermal solar power is encouraged to the fullest extent.

Thermal power systems are typically less expensive than solar power electricity, and can create household hot water and heat reliably. With the addition of pebble bed storage and higher operating temperatures, then the amount of potential uses suddenly becomes many. With the markets of sustainability re-growing their roots we expect to see a variety of new designs and installations in years to come.