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Saturday, June 27, 2009
New Way To Harvest Sunlight
By John Fleck
Journal Staff Writer
The sunlight danced in and out of Albuquerque's clouds earlier this week as a pair of energy companies joined federal researchers to take the wraps off of a new solar technology.
The technology, which uses dish mirrors to focus the sun's energy on an electricity generator, is already under contract for three solar power plants, said Robert Lukefahr, head of Tessera Solar.
Officials from Tessera, technology developer Stirling Energy Systems and Sandia National Laboratories gathered at Sandia's solar energy test lab Tuesday to show off four prototypes of the power system to representatives of electricity utilities who by 2010 hope to be buying electricity from the devices.
Stirling has been working with Sandia for more than a decade on the technology, using Sandia's Solar Thermal Test Facility as a test bed for the device.
It uses a curved array of mirrors to focus the sun's energy on an engine that extracts heat to generate electricity.
Tessera will use Stirling's technology to build power plants, selling the electricity to power companies. Contracts are already in place to build three power plants, company officials said Tuesday — with Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric and CPS Energy in West Texas.
One of the system's strengths, according to Tessera CEO Robert Lukefahn, is that it does not require water for cooling. Water consumption used for cooling in some solar power plants has become an issue in the desert southwest, especially in the deserts of California.
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