2010 World’s Most Efficient Solar Technology
As long we waited for an commercial deployment of the world’s most efficient & powerful solar technology that has appeared now near Phoenix, in a 1.5-megawatt, 60-unit deployment of Stirling Energy Systems’ solar thermal collectors.The major project will serve as a precursor to the deployment of larger commercial projects previously announced in California and Texas that stats total more than 1,600 MW.The SunCatcher consists of a solar concentrator in a dish structure that consists of an array curved glass mirrors. Iterations of the SunCatcher have been among the world’s most efficient machines for solar-to-grid electric conversion for twenty years, most recently breaking the record last year with the highest-ever conversion rate of 31.25%.
Which was announced last week, the 60-dish Maricopa Solar project will be the first commercial-solar scale facility built using Stirling Energy Systems/Tessera Solar’s SunCatcher concentrating on solar technology. “It’s going knock our new solar technology door,” said Sean Gallagher, vice president of marketing and regulatory affairs for Stirling Energy Systems, in an interview earlier this summer. Gallagher added that the credit crunch made a demo project more critical than before to win financial support. “We think that the lenders and investors are going to want to see more of a slice of a system operating and some data before they are willing to finance larger projects.” Finally the vice president and team members expecting this going to be a challenge in solar technology.
At its most it is am important spot, the heat produced is equivalent to a blistering 13,000 suns, “That’ll melt almost anything known to man,” Sandia says National Laboratories’ engineer Chuck Andraka. “It’s incredibly hot.” Sandia has worked extensively on developing the new iteration of the technology.The SunCatcher is a 40-foot wide, 25-kilowatt-electrical (kWe) solar dish Stirling system designed to automatically track the sun and collect and focus solar energy onto a Power Conversion Unit (PCU), which then generates electricity and extreme powerful.
