Recent developments and innovations in solar chimney power technologies: A focus on the last two decades

Solar chimneys are one of the concepts used for power generation from solar energy and are becoming more popular as they rely on lower temperature operations than those of concentrating solar power (CSP). Referring to some technological barriers such as high capital costs, large land requirements, and performance limitations, solar chimney power plants (SCPPs) are shifting from their primary design to being more adaptable to the current energy market. In this regard, this paper reviews the technological development of SCPPs from different aspects and provides extensive analyses of a wide range of performance enhancement techniques. A collection of the most important innovations and modifications proposed by previous works is presented through historical and recent developments. The methods discussed in this study broadly cover geometric modifications, turbine advancements, collector enhancements, hybrid solar designs, and integrations with other technologies such as thermal energy storage, desalination, geothermal, nuclear, and hydrogen power plants. In addition, detailed energy analyses of the SCPPs, along with the economic and environmental implications, are presented by introducing the main challenges and prospects to provide a better understanding of the current level of technical maturity of this technology. The development trend suggests that employing concentrating solar reflectors in the collector section of SCPPs is one of the relatively underexplored techniques that might shape future hybrid CSP-SCPPs. Moreover, integrating SCPPs with thermal storage or geothermal units can mitigate the intermittent nature of their power production, making them a more reliable solution for further deployment.