By Timothy B. Hurst •
August 25, 2009
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 House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming recently heard from a panel of leading edge scientists and industry executives on the state of existing U.S. clean technology and the lack of funding for developing and scaling the technology into commercially viable products and services.
The primary technologies discussed were solar and carbon capture technologies. Dr. Brent Constantz, CEO of Calera Corporation, which focuses on a transformational technology that converts CO2 into green building materials such as cement and aggregate, argues that this process is better than traditional CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage or Sequestration), as it represents a permanent CO2 conversion from gas to solid material.
By Tina Casey •
July 19, 2009
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.
