[roccman]

"My husband bought me a Sun Oven from Matt's website a couple of weeks ago (for our wedding anniversary), to supplement an earlier Sun Oven he had bought me about 14 years ago (still in regular use, I might add!). They are the same models, but the new one from LATOC costs less than he paid for the first one 14 years ago! So I think it's a very good deal!

I baked apple crisp yesterday and it was scrumptious! "

Why does this sound alot like an infomercial?

Ok Matt - how much you pay'n to have posters pimp your ovens?

[PeakOiler]

Why does this sound alot like an infomercial?

Ok Matt - how much you pay'n to have posters pimp your ovens?

Hey, Matt just happens to be one of many SunOven dealers out there. I bought my first one at the Renewable Energy Roundup years ago, way before I even heard of a guy named Savinar. And WisJim has also mentioned the fact that he bought his first one many years ago. You can leave Matt out of this. SunOvens are solid alternative energy technology, and deserves to be mentioned on an energy forum such as this one.

[roccman]

"You can leave Matt out of this. SunOvens are solid alternative energy technology, and deserves to be mentioned on an energy forum such as this one."

Ironically my post bumped the thread to get more exposure to sun ovens.

I have a SO - I agree with you about alt. energy technology.

Relax bro...it's all good.

[eXpat]

Hi Matt,

Do you ship the ovens to Europe (Ireland) and how much would it cost in total for an oven shipped.

Regards,

MP

+1, I live in Edinburgh (Scotland) and none in the UK that i have seen carries those ovens, i'm very interested in getting one.

If you go to sunoven.com you may want to contact the company and look into becoming a SunOven dealer. Do you know a lot of people that might buy one? Might be worth looking into...

Thanks PeakOiler, I'll check the site, here to be honest i see little interest in sunovens here, sheeple likes its grass from big supermarkets you see, but i'm planning to relocate by the end of the next year, and i would like to carry an oven with me
Thanks again!

[Bas]

In fact, as we found out when we got closer, the rays of sunlight reflected by a field of 600 huge mirrors are so intense they illuminate the water vapour and dust hanging in the air.

The effect is to give the whole place a glow - even an aura - and if you're concerned about climate change that may well be deserved.

It is Europe's first commercially operating power station using the Sun's energy this way and at the moment its operator, Solucar, proudly claims that it generates 11 Megawatts (MW) of electricity without emitting a single puff of greenhouse gas. This current figure is enough to power up to 6,000 homes.
But ultimately, the entire plant should generate as much power as is used by the 600,000 people of Seville.

It works by focusing the reflected rays on one location, turning water into steam and then blasting it into turbines to generate power.

BBC article(also has a nice video)

[Doly]

This is hardly the first solar thermal power plant built, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

[Bas]

This is hardly the first solar thermal power plant built, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

What interests me is that this kind of solar power generation could become much cheaper than solar panels, possibly within only a few years as these plants are very cheap to build:

Partly financed with European Union funds, the entire project requires an investment of 1.2 billion euro. The investment required to build the concentrating solar power plant amounted to €35 million, with a contribution of €5 million from the EU's Fifth Framework Programme for research, awarded for the project's innovative approach.

Environment News Service article

[Bas]

Solucar Video

[undertaker]

I thoiught of exactly this form of renewable energy the first time I holocausted an ant with a magnifying glass, but my stupid science teacher said it wouldn't work.

And now they got the things. Amazing.

[coyote]

Cool.

I hope we build a bunch more.

Real soon like.

[Jonathan_Hoag]

Concentrator solar thermal is definitely the way to go for power plant sized solar projects. The focus can achieve very high temperatures, meaning a very high Carnot efficiency, unlike the very stupid idea of a updraft solar tower.

Photovoltaics is still very practical for small scale applications such as rooftops and such.

[Tanada]

PV panal convert 20% or less of light into electricity, why not build a reflector array like that one with PV cells as the pnanl material? Get twice the use from the same light, as it were.

[Bas]

PV panal convert 20% or less of light into electricity, why not build a reflector array like that one with PV cells as the pnanl material? Get twice the use from the same light, as it were.

I don't think you can reflect the light and use it in solar panels at the same time; as it is, mirrors in this set up are far more effiecient than stand alone solar panels. Drawback is that you need to do this on a relatively big scale (like it's being done here) to get those kind of efficience rates. Also mirrors are far less expensive to produce and replace than solar panels.

[JRP3]

Actually people are using reflectors with solar panels to concentrate light and boost the output of solar panels. One problem that needs to be dealt with is elevated heat levels degrading the panels, but it's possible. I'm too lazy to search for examples but they are out there, probably some on this board.

[TheDude]

Parabolic trough power plants are the most successful and cost-effective CSP system design at present. They use a curved trough which reflects the direct solar insolation onto a hollow tube running along above the trough. The whole trough tilts through the course of the day so that direct insolation remains focused on the hollow tube for as long as the sun shines. A fluid, normally thermal oil, passes through the tube and becomes hot. Full-scale parabolic trough systems consist of many such troughs laid out in parallel over a large area of land. A solar thermal system using this principle is in operation in California in the United States, called the SEGS system.[1] At 350 MW, it is currently not only the largest operational solar thermal energy system, but the largest solar power system of any kind. SEGS uses oil to take the heat away: the oil then passes through a heat exchanger, creating steam which runs a steam turbine.

Ah, our good buddy oil.

What does it do to a flock of birds? Can we set up KFCs in the vincinity? Local economy, you know.

Yeah, I know, birds will likely fly at higher altitudes.

Stirling engines fueled by solar sounds promising. Even Dubya did an inspection of SPS's facilities.

[Tanada]

PV panal convert 20% or less of light into electricity, why not build a reflector array like that one with PV cells as the pnanl material? Get twice the use from the same light, as it were.

I don't think you can reflect the light and use it in solar panels at the same time; as it is, mirrors in this set up are far more effiecient than stand alone solar panels. Drawback is that you need to do this on a relatively big scale (like it's being done here) to get those kind of efficience rates. Also mirrors are far less expensive to produce and replace than solar panels.

I guess I didn't make myself very clear so I will try again. A conventional PV panal rejects 80% of the sunlight which impacts upon it. My suggestion is to replace the mirror array that reflects 99% of the energy impacting on it with PV covered reflectors that absorb 20% and reflect about 50% (the other 30% are lost as heat). You need twice as many PV reflectors to get the central aim point to the same temperature, but the PV portion of the system converts the 20% it captures directly into usable Direct current. Given Carnot inefficiencies the thermal tower will only actually capture about 32% of the energy heating it up as Alternating current. Using PV reflectors you get 52% of the energy out of the sunlight instead of 32%.....

[JRP3]

I don't think a solar panel "rejects" 80% of the light, it reflects a small portion, absorbs the rest and converts some of that to electricity and wastes some of it as heat. In your plan the solar panel that's reflecting 50% of the light therefore would only have 50% of the light available to then try and convert into electricity. So instead of converting 20% of all the light available the panel ends up converting 20% of 50%.

[Graeme]

Company on verge of solar breakthrough

A Wausau start-up company is refining its prototype for a system that could more efficiently store and use solar energy to generate electricity or operate as an air conditioner.

The system is able to harness water heated by the sun at lower temperatures than other products on the market, said Baker, a mechanical engineer who owned a custom machining business in Rothschild for 13 years. In addition, it offers dispatchable energy, which means the system can be used when it's most needed, not just when the sun is shining.

The company hopes to build its demonstration system in Arizona, where utility companies offer incentives that, combined with federal and state tax credits, could cover 90 percent of its costs, Manske said.

wausaudailyherald

[Cobra_Strike]

Heat engines are hardly novel, and are already in use. A breakthrough would be if they had a commercial producer selling boat loads of these things (from China, where else?).