Benefits
Heat & Electricity: 60% Effeciency
The usual flat plate photovoltaic cells only produce electricity, and much of the sun's energy is lost. The Focused Sun Microgrid, on the other hand, also harvests heat. Altogether, our system is capable of capturing 3 times as much solar energy as photovoltaic plants. This means 60% compared to 20% for a photovoltaic solution. You get a lot more energy out of it than out of conventional solutions.
By using a “high temperature” absorber together with our concentrating mirrors, heat is delivered at temperatures high enough to generate electricity. Hybrid solar modules convert energy to electricity. The absorber heats the coolant, converting an additional part of the sunlight to heat.
The usual flat plate photovoltaic cells only produce electricity, and much of the sun's energy is lost. The Focused Sun Microgrid, on the other hand, also harvests heat. Altogether, our system is capable of capturing 3 times as much solar energy as photovoltaic plants. This means 60% compared to 20% for a photovoltaic solution. You get a lot more energy out of it than out of conventional solutions.
By using a “high temperature” absorber together with our concentrating mirrors, heat is delivered at temperatures high enough to generate electricity. Hybrid solar modules convert energy to electricity. The absorber heats the coolant, converting an additional part of the sunlight to heat.
Example:
A desalination project needs 160 kW of heat. By combining ten plants, it both gets the required heat and 35 kW of electricity on top. You can even get redundancy to the entire project by duplicating the 20kW plants.
This lets workers focus on a standard design rather than time and effort-consuming customizing based on the volume of power consumption. No need for highly trained, expensive engineers.
A desalination project needs 160 kW of heat. By combining ten plants, it both gets the required heat and 35 kW of electricity on top. You can even get redundancy to the entire project by duplicating the 20kW plants.
This lets workers focus on a standard design rather than time and effort-consuming customizing based on the volume of power consumption. No need for highly trained, expensive engineers.
Storage Energy Day & Night
The heat can be stored in concrete for nearly a day. This means that you can even get energy out of the Microgrid when it is already dark easily. This wouldn't be possible with conventional photovoltaic cells without expensive and short-lived battery solutions.
Storage scaling
The storage scales automatically with the size of your system. The storage module is a cylinder of concrete insulated by an outer cylinder of fiberglass. It's size always matches solar collection regardless of how long the collector strings actually are: The length of the cylinder is the same as the length of the collector string.
The heat can be stored in concrete for nearly a day. This means that you can even get energy out of the Microgrid when it is already dark easily. This wouldn't be possible with conventional photovoltaic cells without expensive and short-lived battery solutions.
Storage scaling
The storage scales automatically with the size of your system. The storage module is a cylinder of concrete insulated by an outer cylinder of fiberglass. It's size always matches solar collection regardless of how long the collector strings actually are: The length of the cylinder is the same as the length of the collector string.
Energy Independence
It is time for you to reclaim control over your own energy supply. Take it from the big companies in your own hands.
The Microgrid consists of easy to maintain, easily available parts. You can put it up in remote areas and set up your own, independent power grid with it. A back-up boiler or diesel generator provides a solution for periods of low sunlight that exceed the systems storage capacity.
With proper synchronizing controls, you can even connect it to an existing power grid. By this, you can even profit from energy production exceeding your own needs. Don't pay for for electricity – earn money for it instead!
It is time for you to reclaim control over your own energy supply. Take it from the big companies in your own hands.
The Microgrid consists of easy to maintain, easily available parts. You can put it up in remote areas and set up your own, independent power grid with it. A back-up boiler or diesel generator provides a solution for periods of low sunlight that exceed the systems storage capacity.
With proper synchronizing controls, you can even connect it to an existing power grid. By this, you can even profit from energy production exceeding your own needs. Don't pay for for electricity – earn money for it instead!
Example
There are over 14,000 clinics in remote rural areas in Nigeria alone. With the Microgrid, they wouldn't need to rely on lager energy providers but could produce all energy they need themselves:The heat is required for laundries, sterilization, water distillation or water desalination. The electricity can power lights, refrigerate vaccine, cool the clinic, plus power medical instruments, cell phones and computers.
The local, easily controllable infrastructure would replace the vulnerable large-scale providers.
There are over 14,000 clinics in remote rural areas in Nigeria alone. With the Microgrid, they wouldn't need to rely on lager energy providers but could produce all energy they need themselves:The heat is required for laundries, sterilization, water distillation or water desalination. The electricity can power lights, refrigerate vaccine, cool the clinic, plus power medical instruments, cell phones and computers.
The local, easily controllable infrastructure would replace the vulnerable large-scale providers.
With our Microgrid product, local entrepreneurs can start their own energy company. You do not need high-tech tools to fabricate a Microgrid system. A team of Focused Sun trained technicians and locally purchased materials can do the job.
Get going with low-level investment: Low-cost parts.
The Microgrid's collectors use sandwich fabrication to make the lowest cost structure to withstand the wind loads that a solar collector faces. Heat storage uses concrete. We are using the lowest cost storage material, available worldwide and familiar to local workers. The genset is based on low-cost automotive parts and is highly efficient.
Train your technicians in only two weeks: Easy set-up
Assembly is easy. The Microgrid plant ships with all the required parts inside the container. Once on site, the same container used for shipping becomes the plant’s weather cover for its thermal heat storage engine/generator (genset). The collectors are assembled and mounted on the roof. Heat is stored in a cylinder of concrete poured into a metal form on-site. After the concrete cures, it is surrounded by insulation to create efficient heat storage. Heat transfer tubes embedded in the concrete heat the concrete and use that heat for other purposes: generate electricity, clean water, cool air, make ice, food processing, fabric processing, enhanced oil recovery and district space heating.
Make Microgrids or make more factories
While we provide expertise, training and the initial parts, we want to give you the full freedom an entrepreneur deserves. Your company can simply make Microgrid units or—if your market supports it—you can make other Microgrid factories. Your license let’s you make more Microgrids for sale locally or to make other Microgrid factories, so long as you maintain the Focused Sun brand.
Inexpensive »Starter kit« to get going
Your factory will need a demo unit as a sales tool. As we have learned, your reseller clients will need to “touch and feel” the high temperature heat and see the solar collectors at work. Also, the demo plant needs to be produced at low cost. Luckily, this is a challenge simple to solve: the cost of a plant is proportional to the size of its genset – and our demo units have a small genset. After searching suppliers from around the world, we found an inexpensive genset that is small (3.5 kW) and efficient (18%), just the right size for you to convince customers and get started at almost no financial risk.
Get going with low-level investment: Low-cost parts.
The Microgrid's collectors use sandwich fabrication to make the lowest cost structure to withstand the wind loads that a solar collector faces. Heat storage uses concrete. We are using the lowest cost storage material, available worldwide and familiar to local workers. The genset is based on low-cost automotive parts and is highly efficient.
Train your technicians in only two weeks: Easy set-up
Assembly is easy. The Microgrid plant ships with all the required parts inside the container. Once on site, the same container used for shipping becomes the plant’s weather cover for its thermal heat storage engine/generator (genset). The collectors are assembled and mounted on the roof. Heat is stored in a cylinder of concrete poured into a metal form on-site. After the concrete cures, it is surrounded by insulation to create efficient heat storage. Heat transfer tubes embedded in the concrete heat the concrete and use that heat for other purposes: generate electricity, clean water, cool air, make ice, food processing, fabric processing, enhanced oil recovery and district space heating.
Make Microgrids or make more factories
While we provide expertise, training and the initial parts, we want to give you the full freedom an entrepreneur deserves. Your company can simply make Microgrid units or—if your market supports it—you can make other Microgrid factories. Your license let’s you make more Microgrids for sale locally or to make other Microgrid factories, so long as you maintain the Focused Sun brand.
Inexpensive »Starter kit« to get going
Your factory will need a demo unit as a sales tool. As we have learned, your reseller clients will need to “touch and feel” the high temperature heat and see the solar collectors at work. Also, the demo plant needs to be produced at low cost. Luckily, this is a challenge simple to solve: the cost of a plant is proportional to the size of its genset – and our demo units have a small genset. After searching suppliers from around the world, we found an inexpensive genset that is small (3.5 kW) and efficient (18%), just the right size for you to convince customers and get started at almost no financial risk.
Example:
A company in Nigeria wants to start supplying the local clinic with heat and electricity, since the conventional grid is expensive and prone to breakdowns. They send four workers on Focused Sun's training. After two weeks, the four workers return together with a container. After a week, the container has transformed into the first microgrid on place, a low-cost demo version that even so does already start to produce heat and electricity – both heavily needed by the clinic. Since the company can produce on-site, they can offer both a reliable energy source and a lower price than the conventional power grid.
A company in Nigeria wants to start supplying the local clinic with heat and electricity, since the conventional grid is expensive and prone to breakdowns. They send four workers on Focused Sun's training. After two weeks, the four workers return together with a container. After a week, the container has transformed into the first microgrid on place, a low-cost demo version that even so does already start to produce heat and electricity – both heavily needed by the clinic. Since the company can produce on-site, they can offer both a reliable energy source and a lower price than the conventional power grid.
Off The Shelf: Microgrid Component Details
Sandwich Mirrors
The most important part of Focused Sun technology is “sandwich fabrication”, a way of making strong, low cost structures. Sandwich fabrication takes 3 components – face sheet, core, face sheet – and bonds them together. This combination is strong because the loads on the mirror are carried by the face sheets which are held apart from each other by the core. It is low-cost because the core can be very cheap and the face sheets very thin.
The most important part of Focused Sun technology is “sandwich fabrication”, a way of making strong, low cost structures. Sandwich fabrication takes 3 components – face sheet, core, face sheet – and bonds them together. This combination is strong because the loads on the mirror are carried by the face sheets which are held apart from each other by the core. It is low-cost because the core can be very cheap and the face sheets very thin.
Absorbers
The Microgrid absorber has a black vacuum-jacketed pipe as its active region. This assembly absorbs about 75% of the sun's energy and converts the energy to heat. Since the vacuum jacket prevents heat loss from the pipe, it gets very hot. Mineral oil coolant pumped through the pipe also gets hot. The Microgrid absorber converts sunlight to hot mineral oil.
In both cases, gearmotors continuously rotate the mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the absorber's active region.
The Microgrid absorber has a black vacuum-jacketed pipe as its active region. This assembly absorbs about 75% of the sun's energy and converts the energy to heat. Since the vacuum jacket prevents heat loss from the pipe, it gets very hot. Mineral oil coolant pumped through the pipe also gets hot. The Microgrid absorber converts sunlight to hot mineral oil.
In both cases, gearmotors continuously rotate the mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the absorber's active region.
Gear Motors
Gearmotors are what rotate the mirrors to track the sun. The module’s computer drives the gearmotors to focus each mirror’s reflected sunlight on the absorber. They are galvanized to give long life and they are double sealed to keep out moisture and dust. Attached to the frame by two screws, they can be replaced in a few minutes.
Continue on to learn about the Solar Factories where the MicroGrid and FourFold™ modules are made — coming soon to a community near you.
Gearmotors are what rotate the mirrors to track the sun. The module’s computer drives the gearmotors to focus each mirror’s reflected sunlight on the absorber. They are galvanized to give long life and they are double sealed to keep out moisture and dust. Attached to the frame by two screws, they can be replaced in a few minutes.
Continue on to learn about the Solar Factories where the MicroGrid and FourFold™ modules are made — coming soon to a community near you.
Microgrid Module
Systems that can generate electricity day or night can power “microgrids”, small local electric grids for supplying energy to gated communities, shopping malls, resorts, and agricultural projects. Microgrids can disconnect from the electrical grid during emergencies or power outages.
By using a “high temperature” absorber together with our concentrating mirrors, the Focused Sun collector can deliver heat at temperatures high enough to drive a turbogenerator that, in turn, can generate electricity. More importantly, that heat for the turbogenerator can be stored in concrete for nearly a day (19 hours at full power). We have recently partnered with Green Energy Resources and Services to supply concrete-based thermal storage. The storage is a 2 ft (600 mm) diameter cylinder of concrete insulated by an outer cylinder of fiberglass batts within a 6 ft (1.8 m) D culvert pipe for weather protection. The length of the cylinder is the same as the length of the collector string of that heats it. Storage size matches solar collection regardless of how long are the collector strings.
With proper synchronizing controls, these systems can connect to the grid. With a back up boiler or diesel generator, they can run completely off-grid. Learn more about it on Dr. Buckley's blog, Focused Sun Partners with Green Energy R&S. Focused Sun is partnering with the Xiang Yang Institute (Hubei, China) to develop the turbogenerators needed to deliver electricity from stored heat, day or night. Also working with us is MIT Professor Emeritus David Gordon Wilson, an expert in thermal storage, solar energy and turbomachinery.
Our recently approved patent covers a high temperature absorber used with our linear Fresnel collector. Mirrors that concentrate sunlight on a hybrid absorber can also concentrate it on a vacuum-jacketed absorber tube.
In several blog posts, Dr. Buckley describes a 100 kW electric microgrid, discusses microgrid economics and how microgrids compare to solar farms.
By using a “high temperature” absorber together with our concentrating mirrors, the Focused Sun collector can deliver heat at temperatures high enough to drive a turbogenerator that, in turn, can generate electricity. More importantly, that heat for the turbogenerator can be stored in concrete for nearly a day (19 hours at full power). We have recently partnered with Green Energy Resources and Services to supply concrete-based thermal storage. The storage is a 2 ft (600 mm) diameter cylinder of concrete insulated by an outer cylinder of fiberglass batts within a 6 ft (1.8 m) D culvert pipe for weather protection. The length of the cylinder is the same as the length of the collector string of that heats it. Storage size matches solar collection regardless of how long are the collector strings.
With proper synchronizing controls, these systems can connect to the grid. With a back up boiler or diesel generator, they can run completely off-grid. Learn more about it on Dr. Buckley's blog, Focused Sun Partners with Green Energy R&S. Focused Sun is partnering with the Xiang Yang Institute (Hubei, China) to develop the turbogenerators needed to deliver electricity from stored heat, day or night. Also working with us is MIT Professor Emeritus David Gordon Wilson, an expert in thermal storage, solar energy and turbomachinery.
Our recently approved patent covers a high temperature absorber used with our linear Fresnel collector. Mirrors that concentrate sunlight on a hybrid absorber can also concentrate it on a vacuum-jacketed absorber tube.
In several blog posts, Dr. Buckley describes a 100 kW electric microgrid, discusses microgrid economics and how microgrids compare to solar farms.
Economics
Economics is the most important reason for solar energy. A solar installation must be durable and it must have a fast payback period. The FourFold™ module can pay for itself 4 times faster than conventional solar panels because the heat it captures can be as valuable as the electricity it captures.
Flat Plate Photovoltaics Economics
Flat plate photovoltaic (PV) panels is the most widespread -- over 90% -- of all solar energy installations in the world. They produce electricity by converting sunlight into electricity. At about $3 per peak Watt, flat plate PV is one of the least expensive systems available.
Flat plate photovoltaic (PV) panels is the most widespread -- over 90% -- of all solar energy installations in the world. They produce electricity by converting sunlight into electricity. At about $3 per peak Watt, flat plate PV is one of the least expensive systems available.
Hybrid Solar
Hybrid solar energy systems collect both electricity and heat. Mirrors reflect sunlight onto an absorber covered with photovoltaic cells, converting about 18% of the energy to electricity. The remaining solar energy is captured as heat by coolant that cools the cells -- capturing 75% of the sun’s energy. All told, hybrids capture 4 times more energy than flat plate PV.
Hybrid solar energy systems collect both electricity and heat. Mirrors reflect sunlight onto an absorber covered with photovoltaic cells, converting about 18% of the energy to electricity. The remaining solar energy is captured as heat by coolant that cools the cells -- capturing 75% of the sun’s energy. All told, hybrids capture 4 times more energy than flat plate PV.
Focused Sun Hybrid
Like other hybrids, the Focused Sun’s hybrid captures 4 times more of the sun’s energy. The FourFold™ module has 4 mirrors that reflect sunlight onto the absorber’s 2” wide photovoltaic cells, converting about 18% of the energy to electricity. Coolant pumped through the absorber cools the cells and heats the coolant. The FourFold™ squeezes the costs out of the modules with sandwich fabrication of its mirrors.
Like other hybrids, the Focused Sun’s hybrid captures 4 times more of the sun’s energy. The FourFold™ module has 4 mirrors that reflect sunlight onto the absorber’s 2” wide photovoltaic cells, converting about 18% of the energy to electricity. Coolant pumped through the absorber cools the cells and heats the coolant. The FourFold™ squeezes the costs out of the modules with sandwich fabrication of its mirrors.
Intellectual Property
Focused Sun recently received approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on its primary patent application, 12/661,321. The full patent can be seen at www.google.com/patents/US20100229852. The application has also been filed in many foreign countries in addition to the US. These foreign applications are winding their way through the patent offices of the various countries.
The key parts of the patent are 1) sandwich fabrication, 2) independently controlled mirrors and 3) both thermodynamic and photovoltaic conversion.
Sandwich fabrication is key because it allows us to make mirrors very cheaply. Sandwich fabrication is the most efficient structure for withstanding distributed loads. These are forces that are distributed over the surface of the structure such as wind forces, inertial forces and gravitational forces. In solar panels, gravitational loads (dead loads) and inertial loads are small compared to wind loads. U.S. building codes require that roof additions must withstand 50 pounds per square foot. That's ten times more than gravitational loads. So for solar panels, sandwich fabrication is the lowest cost structure possible.
Independently controlled mirrors are another key. Our mirror design is called linear Fresnel: parallel mirrors each rotating about a single axis. Most single axis systems have ganged mirrors where many mirrors rotate through the same angle together. Our mirrors are independently controlled giving us more flexibility for different motions. For example, we can flip the mirrors down at night or during bad weather to prevent damage and reduce dust buildup. We can also coordinate our mirrors with cleaning robots to automate the cleaning function. Independent control of mirror direction can also improve the performance of the system as a whole.
Photovoltaic conversion uses photovoltaic cells in our absorber to directly convert sunlight into electricity. Thermodynamic conversion uses sunlight to heat coolant in the absorber and later use that hot coolant to produce electricity with a turbo-generator.
Focused Sun recently received approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on its primary patent application, 12/661,321. The full patent can be seen at www.google.com/patents/US20100229852. The application has also been filed in many foreign countries in addition to the US. These foreign applications are winding their way through the patent offices of the various countries.
The key parts of the patent are 1) sandwich fabrication, 2) independently controlled mirrors and 3) both thermodynamic and photovoltaic conversion.
Sandwich fabrication is key because it allows us to make mirrors very cheaply. Sandwich fabrication is the most efficient structure for withstanding distributed loads. These are forces that are distributed over the surface of the structure such as wind forces, inertial forces and gravitational forces. In solar panels, gravitational loads (dead loads) and inertial loads are small compared to wind loads. U.S. building codes require that roof additions must withstand 50 pounds per square foot. That's ten times more than gravitational loads. So for solar panels, sandwich fabrication is the lowest cost structure possible.
Independently controlled mirrors are another key. Our mirror design is called linear Fresnel: parallel mirrors each rotating about a single axis. Most single axis systems have ganged mirrors where many mirrors rotate through the same angle together. Our mirrors are independently controlled giving us more flexibility for different motions. For example, we can flip the mirrors down at night or during bad weather to prevent damage and reduce dust buildup. We can also coordinate our mirrors with cleaning robots to automate the cleaning function. Independent control of mirror direction can also improve the performance of the system as a whole.
Photovoltaic conversion uses photovoltaic cells in our absorber to directly convert sunlight into electricity. Thermodynamic conversion uses sunlight to heat coolant in the absorber and later use that hot coolant to produce electricity with a turbo-generator.