Green Options

The long-awaited commercial deployment of the world’s most efficient solar technology looks like it will now be near Phoenix, in a 1.5-megawatt, 60-unit deployment of Stirling Energy Systems’ solar thermal collectors.

Announced late last week, the 60-dish Maricopa Solar project will be the first commercial-scale solar facility built using Stirling Energy Systems/Tessera Solar’s SunCatcher concentrating solar technology.

The SunCatcher consists of a solar concentrator in a dish structure that supports an array of 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%.

The new SunCatcher solar power dishes at a Sandia National Laboratories test facility in New Mexico could bring new life to the ailing automobile industry.  Made of stamped sheet metal, the SunCatcher can be produced in a process similar to that of car manufacturing.  That’s no accident: Stirling Energy Systems designed the system to take advantage of the tried-and-true automotive supply chain in the U.S.  With Michigan already pitching itself as the new home of the solar industry, the SunCatcher could help bring new life - and a new sustainable purpose - to the Rust Belt and other manufacturing regions.