Comments on: 3 Megawatts Of Mirrored Solar In Spain

By: Mikael

Mikael — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:52:11 +0000

Well to me it seems the cheapest and cleaner ever method to produce electrical current !!
Aluminum foil you can find every were even in the cabage !!!!!!
You can make a big concave mirror with aluminiu(extreamly cheap) and then add
a small silicum panel (4cm/4cm) which is only 1$….

This small silicium panel (4×4) shoud be adjusted just like POWER tranzistors ?!

Don’t you all know how many kids of tranzistors there are ?!

This are good news !

By: Mahmoud Kabalan

Mahmoud Kabalan — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:59:49 +0000

Nice innovation. But wont excessive heat and concentrated sunlight shorten the longevity of these modules and the solar cells ???

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:16:09 +0000

At last, the world’s best scientists, armed with the latest technologies are focused on clean, sustainable energy sources. Next, we will need educated population regulation, to match the availability of power and resources. Indiscriminate breeding on a whim, with no financial responsibility to the off-spring will be humanities undoing if not soon controlled!

By: curt

curt — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:39:37 +0000

Spain has become, we could say almost ‘ultra active’, in last few years, and especially, after the prime minister appointed almost only women to ministerial positions, even Ministry of defense.
It looks like the women are much more environmentally educated, perceptive and knowledgeable, than men. I hope, the other governments is going to follow Spanih example, soon.

p.s.
There is also correlation between Spain and Germany, where the Prime Minister Angela Merkel, is highly technically educated (Ph.D. in nuclear physics) and is very actively leading Germany into the land of renewable energy sources.

By: tike

tike — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:44:36 +0000

Well, to counter your argument John, it doesn’t really matter what tech is involved–be it steam, photovoltaics… what matters most is the final cost to the consumer and the cost to the environment. Percentage efficiency rate is almost meaningless: sunlight is free. If SolFocus can get cheap, clean power to the consumer, they will succeed.

If they get past the oil companies.

By: john

john — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:06:57 +0000

Nice to see this idea being seriously tried, but it looks expensive to make. Unless your going to cool the cells and get some heat why use 2 mirrors and lose a few % to another mirror? I’d look into making multiple mirrors in one step instead of combining all those individual ones.

But seriously, I don’t see this design working on a large scale. You lose light on double reflection and then lose most to PV a cell. You’ll need serious copper because of the DC over distances will cause losses etc. A concentrating steam plant only reflects 1 time to 1 point and it uses most the sunlight; steam to electric conversion is the best tech we have; put those at ideal sizes. Make cheaper heat storage and I think it would help more.