Combined Solar Updraft Photovoltaic/Concentrating Thermosolar Plant

Solar updraft towers <link> employ a large area of ground covered with a greenhouse type structure. The sun heats the ground and air above it, this tends to rise and can be guided to do so through a turbine and up a chimney structure. Often, the ground underneath the greenhouse structure is blackened to increase energy absorption. We can do better.

Photovoltaic panels are essentially black, and can get extremely hot <link> which actually limits their efficiency in the sort of regions that solar updraft towers might be used. Why not use solar panels to blacken the ground under the green house structure? This would harness the short wavelength light as direct PV generation at ~30% or so and the thermal absorbtion will contribute to the updraft tower. As the PV panels are already under a protective structure, they can be made more cheaply with less protective facing.

Alternatively, a concentrating thermosolar plant, would work well here. They are essentially a parabolic mirror focused onto a pipe - crucially, to the sun, they sort of look black, as all light that hits them is reflected to a small black point. The technology also does not care about the heat under the greenhouse structure. The plant can also be organized such that the steam condenser is at the entrance to the updraft tower collector structure for a further efficiency boost.