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South Africans Revolutionize Concentrated Solar Power With Mini Heliostats

Posted by samzenpus on from the here-comes-the-sun dept.

Taffykay writes: Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) offers significant benefits, but it's often prohibitively expensive. Paul Gauché from Stellenbosch University in South Africa hopes to change that with Helio 100, a series of 'plonkable' miniature heliostats that require no installation or concrete, and offer solar energy that's cheaper than diesel. The Guardian reports: "Helio100 is a pilot project with over 100 heliostats of 2.2 sq meters each, generating 150 Kilowatts (kW) of power in total – enough to power about 10 households. According to Gauché, the array is already cheaper than using diesel, the go-to fuel for most companies and businesses during regular power outages in the country.

5 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Last sentence makes me squirm with anticip- by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Informative

    If only there were some amazing internet search technology where you could cut and paste Google's RE and get an accurate answer.

    Yeah...maybe Google could even offer it. Oh, wait.

    And now the penny drops: it's a broken reference to Google's RE<C.

    Thanks for the improvement.

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  2. No details by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 4, Informative

    TFA is lacking in details about how this works, but if you follow the link you get to a Guardian article which is lacking in details, but links to the projects website which excessively uses gratuitous Javascript and is lacking in details.

    They talk about "plonkability" - that the mirror structures can just be plonked on the ground and will 'just work'. This suggests to me that somewhere in their system is some intelligence or calibration which is able to notice where each mirror is relative to the target and adapt its pointing accordingly. Their photos show the target tower having two rectangular surfaces pointed towards the mirrors. I suspect the plane white surface is there to aid mirror pointing calibration in some way, but I don't know.

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  3. Bullshit by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Informative

    100 units of 2.2 sq meter each has a total solar input of 220 kW peak, roughly. They're claiming 150 kW. That's 68% efficiency, which nobody has achieved.

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    1. Re:Bullshit by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's 68% efficiency, which nobody has achieved.

      These are heliostats, not PV panels. Heliostats work by heating a salt to high temperatures then using the heat to power a turbine in a traditional heat engine. The latter tends to be highly efficient (over 90%), while the former is around 75% efficient or more.

      It is as the article says - it's converted to heat then heat is used to generate electricity, something a lot of power plants do (including nuclear, coal, natural gas, and others).

      If it was PV panels, you're correct, since the best PVs are only getting around 20%. But if you don't mind the extra space for the equipment, solar thermal is the way to go.

  4. Re:"Smokers" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Bird deaths caused by wind and solar are minimal compared to the bird deaths caused by traditional fossil fueled infrastructure. Much like the wind turbine issue, it is much ado about nothing. It is just more visible and makes a better news story than the slow poisonings or secondary displacement deaths caused by other power sources, but in scale is far less damaging.