A new concept for the global distribution of solar energy: energy carrying compounds

A new concept for storage and superregional transport of solar energy from the earth's desert belt is proposed. The concept is based on solid alkaline earth metal compounds, showing an energy-rich and an energy-lean state which are used in an energy distribution cycle. The concept is evaluated with regard to overall solar-to-electricity efficiency and benchmarked by the overall efficiency of the DESERTEC concept. For a scenario assuming that the current share of electricity production from lignite coal in Germany is replaced by the here proposed concept, the CO2 mitigation potential is calculated. The assessment shows that the proposed concept can compete with the benchmark and even shows high potential for optimization.