IBM Solar Concentrator Can Produce12kW/day, Clean Water, and AC

Lucas123 writes IBM Research and Switzerland-based Airlight Energy today announced a parabolic dish that increases the sun's radiation by 2,000 times while also producing fresh water and air conditioning. The new Concentrator PhotoVoltaics (CPV) system uses a dense array of water-cooled solar chips that can convert 80% of the sun's radiation into useful energy. The CPV, which looks like a 33-foot-high sunflower, can generate 12 kilowatts of electrical power and 20 kilowatts of heat on a sunny day — enough to power several average homes, according to Bruno Michel, the project's lead scientists at IBM Research in Switzerland.

Comments

OK

[SpankiMonki]

Bring this to Texas please. Do it now. Thanks in advance.

Re:OK

[sillybilly]

Chill out dude.. the solar irradiation, called isolation (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...) is nowhere near the amount they claim, if 12 kW power average over the day is what they claim, for the amount of surface area their thing covers. I guess they mean 12kWh, not kW, kilowatt-hour, not kilowatt, which are two different beasts. Even that, at 5 cents a kWh, 12 kWh comes to 60 cents of electric power a day. Their contraption looks like a couple ten thousand dollar thing, and the economics are simply not there. Let alone the maintenance cost of a moving thing, that has to track the Sun accurately across the sky, it could be miscalibrated, or motor breaks down. The cheapest thing with solar is massive massive land area at like 8-15% efficiency, with a flat nonmoving panel, that might cost a couple ten bucks a square meter, long term. 80% collection efficiency might be great on a space station or satellite that needs to get lifted off this planet with expensive rocket fuel, but it does not make sense down here if it costs $10,000 for a few square meters, the price needs to drop to like $10-$40 per square meter, and these guys, like Mc Hammer says, just can't touch that. The maximum amount of solar irradiation hitting the planet is 1kW/square meter, and 12kW would be 3x4 meters, at 100% efficiency, a human being being around 6ft=6*12 inches=72 inches=72*2.54cm/in=182.88 cm, or 1.83 meters tall, in comparison. Looking at the guy next to some of their devices, it's not 3x4 meters area, though others look big enough, but who cares if it breaks the bank simply on pouring the cement foundation for it, let alone the tracking system, compared to some slanted panel you toss out there, without a concrete foundation, and you don't care if it breaks down because it can be thrown away and replaced cheaply. Solar power is all about economics, and that means not much fancy stuff. Nuclear has the energy density plus it does require the fanciest of fancy things you can throw at it, but solar is simply too thin energy wise to invest a lot of money into a small collection surface area, because even if you get every last bit of it, it's still not that much. Massive land area, like cheap real estate available in deserts, is what's needed by solar. Wind can allow farming side by side, and real estate land area requirements are not that big. If anything, semitransparent thin film covered glass solar is the future in nondesert places, that allows a greenhouse to still make it in its semi-shade, plus all the glass covered buildings and nonglass rooftops, though cleaning them can be an issue on roofs.

Cubic litres

[Darktan]

The system is capable of producing up to 1,600 cubic liters of water per day

Either the author is an idiot, or his universe has more dimensions than mine.

12kW/day?

[viperidaenz]

Is that 12kWh or 12kW/24h which is 288kWh

W is a unit of power, not energy.

Re:12kW/day?

[MattskEE]

It could also be 12kW peak, which with typical sunlight variation over a day would work out to around 60kWh per day.

Most of the time I see a non-technical article about solar with a kilowatt figure it's the peak power available from the cells, and as a first estimate you can multiply the peak solar power by 5 hours to get the daily output.

link to a genuine source, not this shitty article

[supernova87a]

My head is about to explode with the level of pure units stupidity by this article's author. He should be banned from the profession of writing...

Found the IBM link.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a link to the IBM release: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/solar.html
This confirms a power output max of 12 kwel and 20 kw of heat from the device, so they are talking power rates here.
Here is another link to more info: http://www.research.ibm.com/labs/zurich/dsolar/product.html

Note that the dimension given are in the metric system, and the author of the article botched the conversion, going to square yards instead of square feet.
It is 10 meters high with a 40 m diameter dish.
Of course I would like to see what wind loading a 40 m dish would take, in terms of thunderstorms and the like.

The Facts from IBM scientists on Sunflower

[IBMResearch]

Glad to see so much interest on Slashdot for our sunflower. I'd like to address a few misunderstandings and share with you how YOU can test one of our systems in your home town. 1. The standard commercial system will be available in 2017 for both heat and electricity, the water desalination will come later. 2. This presentation explains the science behind the sunflower and how it can also provide cooling: http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pdf/... By means of a thermally driven sorption chiller, cool air can also be produced. A sorption chiller is a device that converts heat into cooling via a thermal cycle applied to a liquid or solid sorption material. Adsorption chillers, with solid silica gel adsorbers and with water as a working fluid, can replace compression chillers, which place a burden on electrical grids in hot climates and contain working fluids that are harmful to the ozone layer. Although absorption (liquid sorption) systems are already available for combination with the HCPVT system, they provide less cooling output compared to low-temperature driving heat for the adsorption (solid sorption) systems under development at IBM. The systems can also be customized with a transparent back for urban installations. 3. This presentation highlights the regions and the commercial applications: http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pdf/... 4. Here is a YouTube video showing the prototype in Biasca, Switzerland http://youtu.be/JVB9_3IKIAE 5. The news was announced at a TED conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. You can watch the presentation here: http://fora.tv/2014/09/23/Solv...