Showing Off With a Solar Thermal Salute

By Todd Woody
esolareSolar The solar thermal power producer eSolar shows off.

A picture was worth 24,000 mirrors when eSolar, a company based in Pasadena, Calif., that specializes in solar thermal power, transformed a vast field of heliostats at its Southern California solar farm into a Fourth of July tableau of the American flag and the Statue of Liberty.

The Google-backed start-up, which is building solar farms for Southern California Edison, P.G.&E. and El Paso Electric, uses software and imaging technology to create a dynamic parabola from tens of thousands of closely packed mirrors, focusing the sun’s rays on water boilers that sit atop towers. The intense heat vaporizes the water to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine.

As the holiday weekend approached, eSolar’s software engineers got a bit creative.

“The programmers have very accurate software control over the field,” said eSolar’s chief executive, Bill Gross, in an e-mail message Friday evening.

The company’s five-megawatt Sierra demonstration power plant northeast of Los Angeles deploys 24,000 mirrors — each one capable of being individually moved by computer. “To celebrate Independence Day,” the company announced at its Web site late last week, “eSolar’s Sierra SunTower power plant has employed this high-precision technology to declare energy independence.”

The display, of course, was designed to show off eSolar’s technological prowess — and it’s not the first time the company has deployed the gimmick.

Mr. Gross, the founder of the tech-incubator Idealab, contends that eSolar can deliver electricity cheaper than natural gas by using sophisticated algorithms to control inexpensive and lightweight mirrors called heliostats.

“The bigger picture here is that we invested like crazy in Moore’s Law instead of more steel,” he said, referring to Intel’s co-founder, Gordon Moore, who famously remarked that computer processing power doubles about every two years.

“We have such precise control over the field that we can do anything with the mirrors we want,” Mr. Gross said, “and this is proof of it.”

Comments are no longer being accepted.

jerryd July 6, 2009 · 8:43 am

Cute but more interesting is CSP’s eff, low cost and ability to store heat for later use or hold on while a cloud might go by and the ability to use any fuel to run it if needed or increase it’s eff.

A plant like this combined with biomass hybrid is a great combo for places like here in Fla which has clouds and lot of waste biomass. And can be made more eff as most other fossil fuel, nuke plants by putting low temp Rankine generators between the engine and the condenser allowing a much smaller condenser and in many cases, much less water needs for cooling.
Both cutting costs and increasing output/eff.

But even more cost effective, eff is having these on homes, businesses that both pay much more for electricity but could use the heat for hot water or heating. One wouldn’t have to have to buy land , HV powerlines or hire help. That is the real future of CSP, PV, wind, not big wind, solar farms as payback is in 1/2 the time.

What we need is real mass production, standard units that can just be rolled on site and plugged in cutting the outrageous production, install costs now being charged.

There is no reason these can’t be built, installed for less money than a new coal plant as they are very simple devices.

For instance a 3kw CSP unit is just a 5hp steam/Rankine engine, a 200sq’ collector, a 3kw induction generator. a condenser and a multi-fuel back up burner. No reason this needs to cost more than $3k/kw vs coal at $4k/kw. And no reason a wind generator should cost any more than $3k/kw too installed.

Bill Gross July 6, 2009 · 10:01 am

Jerry, you make very good points. CSP is a great competitor to fossil fuels. We can already make plants that are competitive with natural gas, and hope to be able to beat the price of coal soon. You are right on the money — it just requires simplicity and mass production, and a clever design that doesn’t use much materials.

Nick July 6, 2009 · 1:12 pm

So, how much did their efficiency dip for the duration of the publicity stunt?

Anonymous July 6, 2009 · 1:52 pm

Nick – there was not any efficiency dip. The power plant satrt generating electricity in August 2009.

George July 6, 2009 · 2:13 pm

Nick,
how many hours of lost productivity were there when you took your holiday off? Does it really matter?

Stupid Is July 6, 2009 · 3:21 pm

“Gordon Moore, who famously remarked that computer processing power doubles about every two years.”

This is completely wrong. It’s not two years, and he wasn’t talking about processing power.

TheFamilyMan July 6, 2009 · 7:05 pm

That’s pretty cool. Nice way to get some free advertising, too, eh?

alb July 6, 2009 · 7:24 pm

—“Gordon Moore, who famously remarked that computer processing power doubles about every two years.”

–This is completely wrong. It’s not two years, and he wasn’t talking about processing power.

Indeed, Moore’s Law was not about processing power, but rather component density. However, processing capability (rather than power) is a reasonable proxy for component density on a microprocessor. So the quotation in the piece, while not completely accurate, is not “completely wrong.”

As to the time frame, Moore has revised it several times. His last revision, in 1975, was “doubling every 24 months.” See Wikipedia article, which explains this in great detail.

what July 6, 2009 · 7:34 pm

what post 6 said

stop killing wilderness! July 8, 2009 · 2:31 pm

no doubt the families that were lied to and forced from their homes to make way for this boondoggle were delighted by this snotty display of hubris.

CSP is an environmental disaster. the water waste alone (not to mention the low output at the highest demand times) is enough to completely ban it in CA and all other drought-prone ecosystems. do your research, which means not slavishly copying the press releases from these profiteers.

the built environment is the problem and the solution. use the rooftop and in-city brownfield resources we have, and voila! 190% of US electricity needs met at super low cost, thanks to thin film PV. generating at point of use is the only sensible solution for grid decongestion, power reliability, no line losses, no water waste, improved property values, and democratic rather than monopolistic power modeling. there is no downside except to Big Energy, and frankly, we have given them enough.

anand July 9, 2009 · 8:08 pm

What is the cost per watt (at standard sunshine or 1000 watts per square meter of sunlight)?

What is the solar percentage efficiency (using the area of the solar farm)? I have heard that CSP sometimes has about 3% solar efficiency.

Does eSolar discuss its projected marginal operating cost per watt (once the solar farm is in operation)?