Small scale solar thermal electricity/refrigeration
Posted: Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:36 pm
The last few years ive been looking into a range of technology which can use low temperature heat sources to generate electricity or drive refrigeration. Good work is being done by https://matteranenergy.us/ in shrinking and simplifying the devices. Their current prototypes can run off below boiling point hot water, which can be produced by flat plate solar collectors. Since these machines require large volumes of hot water i decided to work on a design of collector that would be significantly cheaper that a typical glass clad solar hot water heater. I have posted a website http://www.absorberroof.com with details of the design, which i am making open source. Interested to know what people think and if they have anything to add, particularly on possible adhesives and temperature considerations of the materials i plan to use. I have made a small prototype and plan to make a series of full scale sections when my resources allow.
Manufacture of this type of technology is probably not within the capacity of local workshops, however it is not nearly as difficult as making silicon solar cells and could be undertaken using existing machinery in many regions around the world.
Manufacture of this type of technology is probably not within the capacity of local workshops, however it is not nearly as difficult as making silicon solar cells and could be undertaken using existing machinery in many regions around the world.