If there is one thing the world needs it is cheaper, cleaner energy. And that is why Innovation Sol And that is why Innovation Solar is reinventing solar power.
Scientists estimate that the earth’s surface receives enough solar power in just a couple of hours to satisfy the world’s energy needs for an entire year. Beginning 3,000 years ago, the Chinese were the first to use concentrated solar energy to start fires. They discovered that solar energy from a bronze disk generated extremely high temperatures at its focal point. Today we find parabolic technol
ogy in our modern space and radio telescopes, communication and satellite dishes, radar receivers, and microphone amplifiers. In many ways, much of our understanding of our universe comes from our ability to capture and concentrate a range of energies using parabolic devices. So what does the US Department of Energy have to say about solar parabolic concentrators? Their study shows that the solar parabolic disk when measured by its surface area, generated 2 and three-quarters times as much electricity as a photovoltaic panel. And that translates into much lower energy prices. But despite its high-efficiency, today’s parabolic concentrators are rarely used to capture solar energy. So, why is that? That’s because, while highly efficient, it takes an engine located on the solar dish to mechanically convert heat into electricity. All parabolic disks concentrate energy at a focal point in front of the disk which presents a problem. As the sun moves during the day, the parabolic disk and its focal point move together. It was impossible using the traditional solar disk design to directly transfer energy without using a Stirling engine to convert the disk’s thermal energy into electricity. Every disk had to have its own Stirling engine and this prevented economies of scale because energy between disks could not be combined. This approach also turned out to be complicated, expensive and difficult to maintain. And this is where Innovation Solar has a solution. Our disk continuously captures the sun’s energy throughout the day. The large parabolic disk concentrates the sun’s energy at a convex mirror above the disk’s center. From there the energy is reflected to a spherical heating chamber behind the disk through a hole in the disk. This design shifts the focal point from the front of the disk to a stationary location behind the disk. Because the distance from the moving concave mirror to the stationary sphere behind the disk is always the same, energy is directly transferred from a moving location to a stationary location. This eliminates the heavy Stirling engine. From the stationary heating chamber, the energy moves down the column through pipes and is combined with the energy from other disks. The combined power drives a large generator which feeds electricity to the grid. An economy of scale is achieved which previously was impossible. At Innovation Solar we have the team, the commitment and the talent to build the world’s first commercially viable parabolic concentrator. Current estimates are that less than 1% of the world’s energy production comes from solar. The exciting news is that, for the first time ever, utility-scale solar projects are adding more new capacity this year to the nation’s grid than any other industry. So solar’s future looks brighter every day. Our goal is to manufacture solar disks that revolutionize industrial scale, solar power. At Innovation Solar, we believe the future for solar is just dawning. Working together we can make great things happen. We thank you for supporting a world powered by clean, ever abundant, renewable solar energy. Your donation of any size will help us reach our goal.
