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.

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.

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.

Irradiation evenness... getting better by a bunch

Thought I'd tease a bit of the recent findings from the optics team:

Earliest proof of concept:

takeaway... not good but the photons do get there... and I learned a lot.

Knowing where the trouble comes from (and rethinking many other tangentially important elements) gets us this:

these are not the same scale (btw) what we care about is the evenness of the light and of the image. The low value (or more precisely intensity) yellow smear is easily corrected (nearly a column above.) The cell size can now drop to about 1/5 the original intended size. I've not tiled it as a hexagon (an even better fit if you hope to grab circular images with fewer wasted margins. ) Hexagons should fit even better on parent wafers... quick estimate 500 per 156mm pseudo square... that is a tiny bit of Silicon serving a very large aperture.

I am trying to characterize the packing factor (how much margin is lost by the space between cells). Or in my case the space between individual mirror "wells." It is better for the heat (.95 or so) than for the PV but if those smears above get into the center they might scavenge  us up to 92 or so. Which would add aperture-efficiency to our list of accomplishments.

Stay tuned!

Study from the Thermal side of the house...

Thermal Plant .(com) is my new internet crush!

Here are some compelling figures on hybrid PVT systems from a thermal perspective. Optimization of the thermal fraction is their agenda and they pound TRNSYS to get some insight. Cool.

here is some of it:

The performance of the PVT system consists in the renewable energy production, net of auxiliary devices’ consumption. Expressed in terms of primary energy, this balance is in general considered an energy saving for the users. Obtained results are shown in the following figures.

Fig. 7. Total energy saving in case of electric heater and natural gas heater Fig. 7. Total energy saving in case of electric heater and natural gas heater

 By observing the graphs, it can be seen that primary energy savings are much more consistent in case of electric heater in comparison with natural gas one. Anyway, in both cases, by increasing the PVT collector surface the total energy saving is not increasing linearly, which leads to conclude that global system efficiency is slightly decreasing by increasing PVT area.
This  happens  because  the  largest  number  of  collectors  increases  the  heat  transfer  fluid  mean temperature in each loop, while progressively reducing both the PV and thermal efficiency.
However, to perform a complete assessment of the PVT energy performance, global system costs and
savings potentials must be taken in consideration, as reported hereafter.

Read more http://www.thermalplant.com/software/optimization-of-solar-thermal-fraction-in-pvt-systems/

IBM Sunflower (Welcome to the Thunder Dome II (part two)

IBM and Airlight team up to develop the Sunflower. HCPVT collector. (High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal.)

Everything is better with a Swiss scientist to show you around, no?

I found this embedded here at Gizmag. A much better story than the others, thank goodness. The collector dish is more creative than the rest of their scheme, I think. They use a fibrous concrete for the dish. Vacuum shaped sheer sheets of metalized foils or the like for the compound primary (40 square meters!) There would need to be dynamic control of that vacuum as the atmospheric pressure changes you do not want a new focal length imposed as the weather and temperature changes....

This just in: a friend tracked down this EDN story. It is not too interested in the offboard bits (low temp implementations and balance of system stuff) but a nice juicy account of a voltage management scheme comes up late in the story, spoiler alert: something called a "Δ-converter" is important. As is putting this important voltage management gear pretty darn close to the cells. Or so it seems.

All of this is worrisome as these are the same cells that are sitting at a 2,000 suns focal point. I'm going to call this "putting all your eggs in one frying pan." Shows a whole lot of faith in the tracking and the cooling apparatus.

I also wonder which disconnections are requiring Flyback Diodes (freewheeling?) Dear readers, what do you see when you read that report. (The images on the EDN story seem to have been pulled. But the PDF still has them (download link here)

Japan rethinking distributed power

Like Hawaii before it, Japan is facing down "too much of a good thing" problem.

"Half of Japan's electric utilities move to restrict additional solar power"

 http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060006761

It will get worked out, but look for more of this kind of trouble before it settles down.