1000 Suns From Huge Concentrating Dish
by Justin Thomas, Virginia 
on 03.20.06
Israel’s National Solar Energy Center will start testing a 400 square meter (4,300 sq ft) solar collecting dish. The huge dish is capable of achieving 1000 suns — it can concentrate the intensity of the sun's energy by a factor of a thousand. The dish is lined with 216 mirrors, but not more than a quarter will be uncovered to sunlight for the initial experiments. The mirrors concentrate the light onto a small square of concentrator photovoltaic cells, which convert the light into electricity. The concentrator photovoltaic panel is only 10 cm by 10 cm and is too small to absorb the energy from the whole dish.
According to a study the center's director, professor David Faiman, published last year, mass producing dish systems like the Sede Boker model would cost less than $1,000 per kilowatt to produce -- the cost of a typical, fossil-fuel burning plant.
:: Via The Energy Blog
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If you think it's interesting and want to digg it: Here.
Just above and to the right of the large pole in the center of the collector... is that actually the convergence of the light from the reflectors you are seeing visibily in mid-air!??
I'm going to go with yes, Jamie.
Are there any plans to expand the 10x10cm plate to absorb more of the dish's energy? Why would they create something intentionally that would concentrate, and then waste, energy?
That could be a convergence of light; which would be a very interesting study, or it could be an optical illusion of sorts with the lens of the camera and the light bouncing off the shapes of the mirrors. You really need to be able to look over the idea in real person.
An interesting thought would be to concentrate the energy and pipe it to multiple collectors by use of glass optics/mirrors.
If you had an optic feed in the place of the current collector which fed the light through a tube which was designed to bounce/split the light to the outer walls of the tube, which is lined with the collectors (all behind the dish or some other place) you may be able to get more collectors which can bene fit from the energy collected from one dish.
Michael
This is just an initial test. If the test suceeds then they can always make a bigger solar reciever to maximize the potential of this array.
Wouldn't the darn thing melt? I don't see how a photovoltaic can handle a whole day of desert sun concentrated like that without melting. But if this works, and is efficient, this would beat solar stirling engines: fewer moving parts, lighter, etc.
I wondered why the collector was too small to receive light from all the mirrors.
But then I thought that perhaps this is so that the collector doesn't need to move during the day - compromising on total power output, but decreasing the complexity of the device.
Any thoughts?
It's freakin' awesome! What a great idear. The son is the only way to go...
My understanding is the same as Mr.Anonymous above, that being the small panel is being used only in testing. For production, a larger panel would be used and all the mirrors would be uncovered.
HMM a little misleading in the last paragraph. Says it would cost less than $1000 per kilowatt to produce. What exactly does that mean. If it means that it can produce energy that would cost less than $1000 per kilowatt thats not cheap. I pay about $.10 per kilowatt from the utility company. Perhaps they meant per megawatt?
$1000 per kW means that is how much to build the plant. typical power plant ~800MW.
800MW=800000kW x 1000 is 800 million dollars says Dr Evil.
Andrew: You have your units wrong. What they are saying is that $1000 will give you a unit that generates 1000 watts.
You pay for electricity in kilowatt-hours, meaning consuming 1000 watts of energy
for 1 hour (or 500 watts for 2 hours, etc). You might pay 10 cents for a KWh (which is pretty expensive, BTW) of electricity, but if you used one of these solar collectors for 10000 hours (8 hours a day for about 3 and a half years), you would break even.
Andrew: please note:
Your electric bill is based on consumption of so many kWh. That's how you can pay $0.10/kWh and still have a powerplant which cost $1,000/kW to build.
Yes, it really does cost that much to build 1 kW of power output. Modern PV panels are about $3,500/kW, not counting the inverter, cabling, etc. How many kWh you get out of them depends on how much direct sunlight you get in your area. Google for "solar insolation" for more information. Consequently, you can see the difference in cost between this system and traditional PV.
The most efficient PV cells out there are concentrating cells, intended to take much more than 1 sun of solar flux. Many of them require active cooling to avoid melting them. However, when you consider that most commercially available PV is ~20% efficient, and some of the concentrating cells are >50%, well, you see the advantage. And yes, the heat drawn off the cells can be put toward other uses (household heating, or hot water production, for example). And yes, there is some research into "combined cycle concentrated solar power," which attempts to use both of the above to increase the total efficiency of the system.
Last, but not least. Yes, Jamie, the "cross" you see in the air is, indeed, the focus from the dish. I have some pictures around here that I took of Solar Two near Barstow, CA, back when it was still running. You can see a similar "cross" in the air on either side of the tower, as the heliostats were not focused on the tower at the moment. When you have that much energy focused in one area, it does have a visible effect in the air.
Andrew: please note:
Your electric bill is based on consumption of so many kWh. That's how you can pay $0.10/kWh and still have a powerplant which cost $1,000/kW to build.
Yes, it really does cost that much to build 1 kW of power output. Modern PV panels are about $3,500/kW, not counting the inverter, cabling, etc. How many kWh you get out of them depends on how much direct sunlight you get in your area. Google for "solar insolation" for more information. Consequently, you can see the difference in cost between this system and traditional PV.
The most efficient PV cells out there are concentrating cells, intended to take much more than 1 sun of solar flux. Many of them require active cooling to avoid melting them. However, when you consider that most commercially available PV is ~20% efficient, and some of the concentrating cells are >50%, well, you see the advantage. And yes, the heat drawn off the cells can be put toward other uses (household heating, or hot water production, for example). And yes, there is some research into "combined cycle concentrated solar power," which attempts to use both of the above to increase the total efficiency of the system.
Last, but not least. Yes, Jamie, the "cross" you see in the air is, indeed, the focus from the dish. I have some pictures around here that I took of Solar Two near Barstow, CA, back when it was still running. You can see a similar "cross" in the air on either side of the tower, as the heliostats were not focused on the tower at the moment. When you have that much energy focused in one area, it does have a visible effect in the air.
Brilliant!
Now THATS a dish!
OOO that makes much more sense :) Glad to have that cleared up. I paid $.095 per KWH last month according to my bill. Which is a little on the high side. Maybe when I earn my next million I will just put some of these dishes up in my backyard......
Do note that light is invisible from the side, and while air and water can have an effect it's negligible over such a short distance. Little doubt it's particles in the air letting you see what's going on.
What problems we had with 1K sun systems was the cooling of the PV and the control of the tracking. You don't make but one mistake at these temperatures. Time will tell, but CPV is here to stay.
To say the real fact.....
you will generate the energy of 1000 suns BUT IN a nn x nn cms steel or similar material.
I think that is wrong to say "1000 suns" only...
The title have to be "1000 suns in nn x nn cms" or something like this.
thank you
dac
how much energy one collecter gets
! that is huge, hope it commercialises fast...!!
how much energy one collecter gets ? thanks