Where was I?... Oh, yeah... Technolgy also rans

In the solar field there are a bunch of technologies coming and going.  Not just Solyndra but dozens of concerns rising and falling. For a while I tried to keep an eye on everything and I still try to skim publications to see what is being worried about and who's out front and the like.

But the deep reading has to be more limited. Hybrids. Photovoltaic-Thermal hybrids get the close readings here at camp Solar Spork. And some are pretty darn interesting I think. And I'm glad to not be alone in trying to accomplish a marriage between the electrical and heat requirements of buildings.  It would be a very alarming sign if no one else was working on it. So lets take a few postings to look at the current cast of characters. I guess these are not "also rans" but "also runnings" in that the race is still on. (I do have some interesting "did not finish" examples to share some time.)

(OH READERS? please do comment some time - this working alone can make it hard to know if one is making sense. Love to know how you came to this blog and what you are up to and the basis of your interest.)

First up: Echofirst.com

They used to have a better name. This one just looses me. Anyhow, very interesting technology and they have some money and some early adopters and lots of data... Lots of what they have is not even their own gear just their assembly of same. So they put an array of PV panels and then ventilate the backs and draw that heated air into a heat exchanger for transport to a storage tank and or use in heating. Pretty good reporting on the performance to be found on their site. I wonder at their choice of date ranges:

Sample
Two sets of twenty systems each were analyzed to provide a robust sample size. Performance data from twenty systems was collected and analyzed for a ninety day period beginning January 1, 2011 and ending March 31 2011. Performance data from a separate twenty systems was collected and analyzed from the period March 1, 2011 to March 31, 2011.

This date range seems custom picked to flatter their system. To be fair, maybe this is the soonest they could start the study. They published it in June 2012 so maybe there is more to come? We'll see.

Still they are making the case pretty well and like other thermal players they are suffering the super low prices of natural gas.  Last year or so they were not talking about retrofit installations but the reality of the slow housing starts in the US seems to have given them the hint that the retrofit market needs some love.

Take a look and see what you think. Are they making the case for Hybrids? What makes sense in the way they put it and what should be clarified.

(These guys seem like the real deal - spending money and effort on the system and on making the case. Not just pimping a presentation and a prototype)
[edit note: fixed a bum link: 11/17/2014]