While the sun is a major source of energy, it has its limitations. Some of the major problems is that it is not available at night, it hides during cloudy days and some parts of the world actually waits for the sun to come for months. For example, sunlight is quite irregular in Central Europe and even when it is there, it never shines with the same intensity like it does in other parts of the world.
Germany is one country which takes renewable energy very seriously and the country feels that to be dependent on an energy source which is not reliable; is not an efficient structure.
To keep the country’s commitment and also to help scientists and researchers to keep their work of investigating renewable energy, the German Space Center (DLR) has built an artificial sun called ‘Synlight‘ and is making it public in Jülich, North Rhine Westphalia.
Hydrogen is very important fuel in terms of renewable energy or green fuel for the future because it leaves only water after it has been used. The only problem with producing hydrogen is that it requires large amounts of energy, which at present comes from the sun. DLR was already producing hydrogen with the help of solar radiation but this was done only at laboratory scale. If hydrogen is to used at a industry scale then there has to be some constant and reliable source of energy. So DLR built the three story artificial sun to be used in various research for developing solar technologies including producing hydrogen using solar radiation.
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Synlight is three storied high and made up of 149 xenon short arc lamps which can emit up to 350 kilowatt of radiation using reflectors, in other words 10,000 more times the intensity of the solar radiation experienced on earth. The temperature of the Synlight can reach up to 3000 degrees Celsius. The high degree temperature provides the apt environment to produce hydrogen.
NRW’s Environment Minister Johannes Remmel stressed the importance of research for the energy sector: “In order to achieve the targets for the expansion of renewable energies, we need the practical expansion of existing technology, but without investing in innovative research, modern technologies and global lighthouse projects such as Synlight will keep the energy turnaround.”
Synlight can be a reliable and constant source of energy to target the expansion of renewal energies. And it can be used not only for producing hydrogen, since Synlight emits UV rays like sun, it can actually unlock other areas of research such as studies on aging process of materials.
Source: DLR