MIT building low-cost solar concentrator

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - A team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students is building a prototype power concentrator with a goal of revolutionizing the solar energy field.

Led by MIT mechanical engineering graduate student Spencer Ahrens, the team is assembling a 12-foot-square mirrored dish capable of concentrating sunlight by a factor of 1,000. But it's being built from simple, inexpensive industrial materials selected for price, durability and ease of assembly rather than for optimum performance.

Ahrens said the goal is to make a dish that, in mass production, can be competitive in cost with other energy sources and produce heat for space heating and electric power at the same time.

"The technical challenge here is to make it simple," Ahrens said. "We're using all commodity materials that are all in high production."

Ahrens said the dish, in the Sun Belt, could make about 10,000 peak watts of heat and 3,500 peak watts of electricity.

"It's designed for long life - we hope they will last more than 30 years with good maintenance - and for indigenous manufacturing in the developing world with minimal tooling," he said.

Related News

Ukraine's parliament backs amendments to electricity market law

KIEV - The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has adopted at first reading a draft law that proposes giving the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities the right to set marginal prices in the electricity market until 2023.

A total of 259 MPs voted for the document at a parliament meeting on Tuesday, November 12, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

Bill No. 2233 introducing amendments to the law on the electricity market provides for the legislative regulation of the mechanism for fulfilling special obligations for the purchase of electricity at a "green" tariff, preventing the uncontrolled growth of electricity…

READ MORE
nyc empty streets

Covid-19 is reshaping the electric rhythms of New York City

READ MORE

What can we expect from clean hydrogen in Canada

READ MORE

usa emissions

Potent greenhouse gas declines in the US, confirming success of control efforts

READ MORE

US Electricity Prices

US Electricity Prices Rise Most in 41 Years as Inflation Endures

READ MORE