Sunrgi, Another Concentrated Solar Technology
May 2nd, 2008This one uses very efficient Spectrolab PV modules, but what I found interesting is how wasteful the system is. They hooked massive heat sinks to the back of the units to prevent the PV modules from burning up. Why not heat water and run a turbine? Why not affix stirling engines to the panels? Rather, they just waste all of that energy by dissipating the heat into the air.
Maybe adding anything else to it would increase the cost to the point where the about-the-cost-of-coal claim can’t be made???
Via: EcoGeek:
Sunrgi’s technology is fairly simple. Basically they use a magnifying glass to concentrate the power of the sun 1600 times onto a tiny square of the most efficient photovoltaic material on the planet. While others are concentrating on bringing the price of the panels down (along with efficiency), Sunrgi actually uses panels from Spectrolab, which are three times more efficient than the cheap panels being produced by NanoSolar.
The photovoltaic cells remain efficient even when collecting these huge amounts of light per square centemeter. However, they don’t remain efficient at 3000 degrees F. In fact, if this much light were concentrated on the cells, and the cells were not cooled, they would melt. Sunrgi has developed a proprietary cooling system to keep the ultra-expensive cells at nominal temperatures even at the hottest part of the hottest day. You can see, in the render, that the bottom of the panels actually look like huge CPU heat sinks.
By using such a small amount of photovoltaic material, and such a large amount of cheap magnifying glasses, Sunrgi says that their system should be extremely inexpensive. In fact, they’re saying that, in sunny climates, it will be sold for around $0.05 per kilowatt, about the cost of coal.
