This is interesting. GE is making a startup/relaunch/rebundle called Current. They are committing huge resources to it.
(Dumb URL, imho, but whatever.)
I learned about it here.
Grid Edge? Demand Response? Demand Response 2.0? That is part of it, but they are also looking square in the face at energy as a service and that could be a potent, even "game changing" change. But their big company instincts and resources could doom them to sticking with a plan rather than scrap and pivot from one to the next. Certainly one to watch.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Decloaking the High-Temperature Hybrid PVT collector
Long time no blog...
But I come with interesting news (or so I hope) so let's get started:
Back at the start of the High Temperature Hybrid PVT odyssey it was not even high temp, it was just an effort to cool the PV for higher performance in the summer. Then I started digging in to what to do with the heat. From there I moved onto the existing hybrids (discussed elsewhere in this blog).
In the early days, the theory was a mix of:
"This seems possible, but what am I missing?"
and
"Somebody must have already solved this problem..."
However, as time passed, I came to understand the compromises involved in cooling the photovoltaic components. Far more importantly, I've come to see the role of finance in shaping the evolution and distribution of solar systems. Much of this blog has been about that and the comings and goings within the concentrator and hybrid PVT segments of the solar collector industry.
Behind the scenes (the main subject of this post) I worked on filing (and the early arguments for) a patent on my version of a hybrid solar collector. The examiners were having none of it. Most of my accomplishments were (are) in the domain of radical simplification and substitution and I thought there was so much of that innovation that it constituted a new article... And it seemed that way at the start: the Korean examiner who did the WTO exam thought it was novel and useful - actually a subtly different standard for WTO but I passed that with flying colors. Anyhow, I knew from early on that Izumi was the high water mark for inventions in this domain:
that is just the first figure... Take a look at the whole thing, it is awesome:
"Hybrid solar collector for generating electricity and heat by separating solar rays into long wavelength and short wavelength"
He, Izumi, really understood the problem (long waves being counter-productive) and knew splitters could "save the day" and he mixed and matched in a variety of ways... so really look at them. In the weeds of the claims he does not gather the full value of what he shows, I believe. And he does not crack some practical problems and shows a lovely, fluid mind
Izumi's is THE best of the bunch. And I read all of these listed below (each number is a link) and many more not so on point to arrive at that conclusion.
22009 28264 32010 43208 102120 110811 120096 122010 0154865 201001 201001 201004 0251417 0252025 292010 292010 0432706 787145 980505 1068650 1220091 1386781 1663032 1683266 1837449 1855815 1946184 1989999 1989999 1993213 2133649 2141330 2205378 2243593 2247830 2277311 2460482 2687126 2872915 2872919 2906257 2907318 2920710 2969637 2969788 2969918 3125091 3171403 3227153 3245195 3262493 3273558 3514942 3861379 3868823 3884414 3889745 3915147 3952724 3960136 3982527 3985119 3988166 3990430 3995429 3999389 4002499 4003638 4016860 4018215 4024852 4027653 4027821 4033327 4036208 4038965 4043318 4045246 4048982 4048983 4059093 4064868 4069812 4074678 4080954 4088117 4108154 4119085 4120285 4122831 4126121 4127105 4129119 4133298 4142509 4149903 4149903 4150662 4151828 4153042 4171695 4186724 4198955 4213303 4217882 4232655 4234354 4240405 4262658 4273104 4275710 4282857 4303059 4304222 4306543 4307712 4319561 4355630 4377155 4426996 4474173 4553530 4559926 4644934 4653471 4687880 4687880 4700013 4723535 4723535 4834066 4892593 4911145 4949704 4987883 5123247 5309893 5309893 5365920 5466301 5466301 5468304 5555878 5653222 5727585 5927271 6047697 6057504 06080927 6705311 7142010 7388146 7607428 7688525 20041122 20082012 20082012 25082010 25082010 120100726 120100726 300200611
That is a copy/paste effort from my note file, so some look broken linkwise but take a look! There is some interesting stuff in there ... and this list excludes the foreign patents and the non patent art.. all of which is to say it was a BUNCH of stuff and Izumi's was the runaway best.
But even after some pointed back and forth with the patent examiners, my effort (coming in a moment) was seen as a mixture of many parts Izumi plus a few parts of other inventions.
But I come with interesting news (or so I hope) so let's get started:
Back at the start of the High Temperature Hybrid PVT odyssey it was not even high temp, it was just an effort to cool the PV for higher performance in the summer. Then I started digging in to what to do with the heat. From there I moved onto the existing hybrids (discussed elsewhere in this blog).
In the early days, the theory was a mix of:
"This seems possible, but what am I missing?"
and
"Somebody must have already solved this problem..."
However, as time passed, I came to understand the compromises involved in cooling the photovoltaic components. Far more importantly, I've come to see the role of finance in shaping the evolution and distribution of solar systems. Much of this blog has been about that and the comings and goings within the concentrator and hybrid PVT segments of the solar collector industry.
Behind the scenes (the main subject of this post) I worked on filing (and the early arguments for) a patent on my version of a hybrid solar collector. The examiners were having none of it. Most of my accomplishments were (are) in the domain of radical simplification and substitution and I thought there was so much of that innovation that it constituted a new article... And it seemed that way at the start: the Korean examiner who did the WTO exam thought it was novel and useful - actually a subtly different standard for WTO but I passed that with flying colors. Anyhow, I knew from early on that Izumi was the high water mark for inventions in this domain:
that is just the first figure... Take a look at the whole thing, it is awesome:
"Hybrid solar collector for generating electricity and heat by separating solar rays into long wavelength and short wavelength"
He, Izumi, really understood the problem (long waves being counter-productive) and knew splitters could "save the day" and he mixed and matched in a variety of ways... so really look at them. In the weeds of the claims he does not gather the full value of what he shows, I believe. And he does not crack some practical problems and shows a lovely, fluid mind
Izumi's is THE best of the bunch. And I read all of these listed below (each number is a link) and many more not so on point to arrive at that conclusion.
22009 28264 32010 43208 102120 110811 120096 122010 0154865 201001 201001 201004 0251417 0252025 292010 292010 0432706 787145 980505 1068650 1220091 1386781 1663032 1683266 1837449 1855815 1946184 1989999 1989999 1993213 2133649 2141330 2205378 2243593 2247830 2277311 2460482 2687126 2872915 2872919 2906257 2907318 2920710 2969637 2969788 2969918 3125091 3171403 3227153 3245195 3262493 3273558 3514942 3861379 3868823 3884414 3889745 3915147 3952724 3960136 3982527 3985119 3988166 3990430 3995429 3999389 4002499 4003638 4016860 4018215 4024852 4027653 4027821 4033327 4036208 4038965 4043318 4045246 4048982 4048983 4059093 4064868 4069812 4074678 4080954 4088117 4108154 4119085 4120285 4122831 4126121 4127105 4129119 4133298 4142509 4149903 4149903 4150662 4151828 4153042 4171695 4186724 4198955 4213303 4217882 4232655 4234354 4240405 4262658 4273104 4275710 4282857 4303059 4304222 4306543 4307712 4319561 4355630 4377155 4426996 4474173 4553530 4559926 4644934 4653471 4687880 4687880 4700013 4723535 4723535 4834066 4892593 4911145 4949704 4987883 5123247 5309893 5309893 5365920 5466301 5466301 5468304 5555878 5653222 5727585 5927271 6047697 6057504 06080927 6705311 7142010 7388146 7607428 7688525 20041122 20082012 20082012 25082010 25082010 120100726 120100726 300200611
That is a copy/paste effort from my note file, so some look broken linkwise but take a look! There is some interesting stuff in there ... and this list excludes the foreign patents and the non patent art.. all of which is to say it was a BUNCH of stuff and Izumi's was the runaway best.
But even after some pointed back and forth with the patent examiners, my effort (coming in a moment) was seen as a mixture of many parts Izumi plus a few parts of other inventions.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
California's Grid has overgeneration/curtailment problems too...
Check out this story at Breaking Energy.
in part:
That story comes from another source eenews.net and it is a pretty good report... down a bit there is this:
here is a "distributed generators fight back" read on the duck curve:
Solar supporters: Open season utilities duck on Ilsr.org:
"Short term storage, meet solar thermal, solar thermal, meet short term storage.
in part:
Four times this past spring, the state’s grid operator had to shut off wind and solar power when it exceeded demand. The largest such curtailment was 1,100 megawatts during the morning of April 27, 2014.Interesting, no?
That story comes from another source eenews.net and it is a pretty good report... down a bit there is this:
The plants that were curtailed likely received all of their contracted payments from the utilities, as contracts generally have a small curtailment provision built in. But as curtailment becomes more likely, contracts could become more flexible in the future, Bloom said.The grid as free battery is on the way out as the importance of "when" grows. I've been wrapped up on Patent issues and missed the "Duck Curve" as a concept. Let's look into that shall we?
"I think it means the contracts will allow for increased flexibility for dispatch by the utilities over time," he said. "There's a big change from the old days, when if you produced, they had to take it."
There will be a need to incorporate energy storage into renewables projects, as well. Right now, a solar project without storage would beat out one with storage solely on cost, even though utilities are under a new mandate as of last year to procure 1.3 gigawatts of storage by 2020.
here is a "distributed generators fight back" read on the duck curve:
Solar supporters: Open season utilities duck on Ilsr.org:
That 5 to 8 ramp is something else! It is certainly a call for west facing PV arrays... And some short-term storage too. What might many solar pre-chilling of HVAC condensers do to that picture? Could a daytime version of the Ice Bear eat the Utilities Duck? The Ice Energy people are used to marketing to utilities (smart) but the other side is also serviceable if you have surplus generation that would be curtailed during the day - better to shunt it to ice and then pull out that service during the peak charge time of 5 to 8..."The duck is the perfect vehicle for utility complaints because it casts the growth of distributed solar as a major technical problem (an area where most policy makers defer to utilities) rather than an economic one, where utility complaints can be contrasted with their customer’s desires for more local control over their energy use and costs."
"Short term storage, meet solar thermal, solar thermal, meet short term storage.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Breaking news... (wow did this sound familiar)
I got a Google Alert based on my "Solar PVT" find criteria. Usually it just gets me new solar companies that have PVT in their names... but today a jackpot instead.
Then some more digging (god bless the internet - nearly instant satisfaction on things like this)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610214003348
Pretty neat stuff. But not a spork-killer I think... only 10 to 20 X concentration and so it has high silicon content and everything they have is at minimum 20 to 40 times as big and materially/coatings intensive as my design... I'm not sure how they see commercial viability. (I hope they do see it as we are all looking for the pay-no-pay line.)
It looks like they might be working with Chromasun. That would be interesting.
I have to dive into that second paper tomorrow or Saturday as it has the meat... but I thought I'd share as soon as I saw it.
If you read it let me know what you make of it!
A beam-splitting photovoltaic thermal receiver for solar concentrators
A photovoltaic thermal receiver that separates incoming light energy by wavelength can produce electricity and thermal output of 150° simultaneously.
I know! Right? This is what I am talking about. Right down to the 150C heat... The full story.
Then some more digging (god bless the internet - nearly instant satisfaction on things like this)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610214003348
Pretty neat stuff. But not a spork-killer I think... only 10 to 20 X concentration and so it has high silicon content and everything they have is at minimum 20 to 40 times as big and materially/coatings intensive as my design... I'm not sure how they see commercial viability. (I hope they do see it as we are all looking for the pay-no-pay line.)
It looks like they might be working with Chromasun. That would be interesting.
I have to dive into that second paper tomorrow or Saturday as it has the meat... but I thought I'd share as soon as I saw it.
If you read it let me know what you make of it!
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Did we talk about the white Paper in 2011?
It occurs to me that you might not have found the white paper from back in 2011...
It is in a few places. Try this one.
Early on I was trying to figure out if there were any deep flaws I could discover in the high temperature hybrid approach. This paper lays out a defense of the thinking. It is pretty short and some of the data is a good bit less flattering than it could be (caution on my part mostly). Take a look though and let me know what you think. I need to write a new one with the improved optics and reduced cost of goods and maybe some more up to date economic evaluations too.
Not mentioned there but mentioned elsewhere in this blog are my observations about the unrealistic aspect of VC money expectations in a hardware/energy market. This is a really lean domain. Better to strap solar onto a roofing company, or just a lending operation. What winning money there has been in the Solar biz seems to have been there for the people who captured the finance part and some of the tool sellers. There have been winners but not VC style super block busters, or am I missing somebody?
I think about PVTsolar which became First solar and then got bought out by SunEdison, for cheap. At least that is what I gathered. Probably making OK gear and selling it for a reasonable markup etc but not the kind of huge win the VC types that backed the first iteration were looking for. I wonder if those kinds of wins were ever going to be possible in the energy market. I know they need some kind of motivating illusion to take the risk and we are talking about somewhat new markets so optimism is a good thing but while the gear is new the need (energy) is old and it is met by many competitors.
Got to get back to the grind.
It is in a few places. Try this one.
Early on I was trying to figure out if there were any deep flaws I could discover in the high temperature hybrid approach. This paper lays out a defense of the thinking. It is pretty short and some of the data is a good bit less flattering than it could be (caution on my part mostly). Take a look though and let me know what you think. I need to write a new one with the improved optics and reduced cost of goods and maybe some more up to date economic evaluations too.
Not mentioned there but mentioned elsewhere in this blog are my observations about the unrealistic aspect of VC money expectations in a hardware/energy market. This is a really lean domain. Better to strap solar onto a roofing company, or just a lending operation. What winning money there has been in the Solar biz seems to have been there for the people who captured the finance part and some of the tool sellers. There have been winners but not VC style super block busters, or am I missing somebody?
I think about PVTsolar which became First solar and then got bought out by SunEdison, for cheap. At least that is what I gathered. Probably making OK gear and selling it for a reasonable markup etc but not the kind of huge win the VC types that backed the first iteration were looking for. I wonder if those kinds of wins were ever going to be possible in the energy market. I know they need some kind of motivating illusion to take the risk and we are talking about somewhat new markets so optimism is a good thing but while the gear is new the need (energy) is old and it is met by many competitors.
Got to get back to the grind.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Focused Sun... a low tech low concentration approach
Ugly - in a good way...
Focused Sun
They must have been in stealth mode as no pictures seem to be on the web save for the ones in the release, until Nov. 17th when they launched an Indigogo campaign. A million dollar goal and no early givers. Yikes. And the csp-world story neglected to mention the indigogo campaign.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focused-sun
It is much smaller than I thought based on the csp-world picture. Pretty good coverage in the video of why it is affordable. It does not look like it is weather hard to the degree that it should be. But I like the effort to make it low tech and "makeable." I'm in the let many flowers bloom camp: but this does not seem deeply considered.
Also interesting (as a side note) that it is a collaboration between a Swede and some Americans in New Mexico. One of my favorite rivals is also designed by a Swede (the Solarus.se effort). I guess I must elevate my herring intake to stay in the game!
Take a look and let me know what you think.
Focused Sun
They must have been in stealth mode as no pictures seem to be on the web save for the ones in the release, until Nov. 17th when they launched an Indigogo campaign. A million dollar goal and no early givers. Yikes. And the csp-world story neglected to mention the indigogo campaign.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focused-sun
It is much smaller than I thought based on the csp-world picture. Pretty good coverage in the video of why it is affordable. It does not look like it is weather hard to the degree that it should be. But I like the effort to make it low tech and "makeable." I'm in the let many flowers bloom camp: but this does not seem deeply considered.
Also interesting (as a side note) that it is a collaboration between a Swede and some Americans in New Mexico. One of my favorite rivals is also designed by a Swede (the Solarus.se effort). I guess I must elevate my herring intake to stay in the game!
Take a look and let me know what you think.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
PowerPanel guys are still plugging away. I love the tank design. ALOT.
Check out the video at the bottom of their home page: hot water storage could not be easier I think. Up to 200 F and it can be walked through any doorway and fits 350 gallons. (that's 93 C and 1325 l)
It looks like there are really only two foam parts (wall and half top/bottom) and a liner and an external girdle. Just all kinds of clever. Wish they'd show a price for it.
http://www.powerpanel.com/
My design does not require storage. I just love smart. And this is smart stuff.
It looks like there are really only two foam parts (wall and half top/bottom) and a liner and an external girdle. Just all kinds of clever. Wish they'd show a price for it.
http://www.powerpanel.com/
My design does not require storage. I just love smart. And this is smart stuff.
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