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April 02, 2014
Says Hong Feng,
hf at hongfeng dot c and h
I have spent more than two years developed a solar thermal energy system. Unlike those existing systems used the reflect slots to pipe, the reflect mirrors to a high tower, the parabolic dish-shaped reflector to the Stirling engine mounted at the focus point, I have adopted the massively produced "full glass vacuum solar thermal collection tubes" to gather the heat from the sunlight to heat up the water kept in water tank to the temperature greater than 80 (Celsius) degrees in summer here, then boil the reserved hot water to high temperature and high pressure steam inside boiler, and use the steam to drive the steam turbine and generator to make the current. The output power is 5 kw. In the system, no fossil fuel is used, and the system does not emit any carbon dioxide or any other pollution to the environment, it is a genuine clean and renewable energy development technology.
The output capacity of the system is scalable, to get more power greater than 5 kw (even more than one megawatt), thousands of the full glass solar tubes can be organized into arrays in 50 pieces tubes for each, arrays can be organized into a matrix, and then matrices of the arrays are connected with the water pipes and computer system for the control. Sensors and pumps can communicate with the central computer using the CAN-bus, enables the central computer to monitor and control the supply and looping of the water between a (large) water pool (container) and the water tanks connected with the tubes. The software is developed on the free Debian GNU/Linux.
Compared with the popular PV technology, my system is more environmental friendly, because the glass tubes are not so power-consumption in the production. The solar energy transform rate of the system is higher than the PV solution. Also, most important, as the cost for the system is competitive.
I would like to promote this green-to-gold system to the global market, especially to the regions where the solar thermal resource is plenteous. If you can find some reliable friends in the expected regions, I would like to get their help to figure out these questions:
1. If the government in the local market has any concrete and operable policy and/or any incentive to encourage the clean and renewable energy development?
2. What is the cost of the power per kilowatt*hour the customers pay to the power grid in the local market?
3. Is it possible to sell the generated current to the local power grid? If yes, what tariff can be expected to achieve in the local market?