South Africans Revolutionize Concentrated Solar Power With Mini Heliostats

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.

Comments

Re:"Smokers"

[Socguy]

While what you talk about does happen, it's not a problem because of the relatively rare nature of the incidents. Skyscrapers in cities kill orders of magnitude more birds than power towers.

Frankly, the birds would be far better off if we switched to CSP exclusively due to the wholesale destruction of habitat caused by fossil fuel development.