Dish/Stirling systems use parabolic mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a receiver, heating a gas chamber connected to a piston and crankshaft. They have an efficiency of around 25% and are mounted on motorized pedestals. Flat/Stirling systems use a parabolic mirror and a Stirling engine, which runs silently using any heat source. The Stirling engine has a fixed volume of gas and no exhaust, making it ideal for use on stealth vehicles. A typical flat/Stirling system delivers one kW of power per square meter of mirror used. A small prototype Parabola/Stirling power plant was built in 2004 and could be competitive with larger electricity generation systems.
The Dish/Stirling system is a renewable energy source that generates power by using mirrors arranged in a parabolic fashion to reflect sunlight onto a small focal receiver, thereby heating a gas chamber connected to a piston and crankshaft. The drive shaft feeds a generator which produces electricity to be distributed on the grid.
Unlike conventional photovoltaic (PV) solar cells which have an efficiency of between 10% and 18%, dish/Stirling systems are capable of converting approximately 25% of the available energy from sunlight into electricity. Dish/Stirling systems are commonly called Solar Thermal Electric systems, to distinguish them from traditional solar panels. Dish/Stirling systems are mounted on motorized pedestals that are programmed to ensure that the mirrors continue to face the sun throughout the day.
A flat/Stirling system comprises two components; the solar disk, which is simply a parabolic mirror or set of mirrors, and a Stirling engine, a closed-cycle engine that runs silently using any heat source. The efficiency for the Stirling engine approaches the maximum theoretical efficiency for any engine, known technically as the Carnot cycle efficiency.
The Stirling engine uses a fixed volume of gas that never leaves the chamber. An alternating heating/cooling cycle ensures a constant supply of refrigerated gas to be heated from the thermal energy source. Since there is no exhaust in a Stirling engine, they are ideal for use on stealth vehicles such as submarines. Since Stirling engines can produce electricity using any source of thermal energy, dish/Stirling systems sometimes use combustion to generate heat at night when sunlight is not available.
The Stirling engine was patented by Scottish minister Robert Stirling on 27 September 1816, although the engine was not used in serious applications until the turn of the century. A typical flat/Stirling system today delivers one kW of power per square meter of mirror used. In late 2004, Sandia National Laboratories, in partnership with Stirling Energy Systems, Inc., built a small prototype Parabola/Stirling power plant that generates enough electricity to power more than 40 homes. The prototype plant cost nearly $1 million, but the researchers say that once in production, plants of a similar size could cost as much as a third of this cost, making dish/Stirling systems competitive with larger electricity generation systems. conventional.
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