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[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

A Stirling engine and mirrored solar dish are within the capability of 
reasonably well-equipped machine shops, unlike a lot of photovoltaic 
technology.

And according to this article, in the cloudless southwest, (an 
installation 100 miles by 100 miles square, could generate all the 
electricity currently in use in the U.S. and produced by fossil 
fuels----at a price competitive with said fossil fuels.  The U.S. should 
be moving in this direction to replace our current reliance on imported 
oil, and to replace our reliance on coal as an oil substitute.
                
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 9, 2004

*Sandia, Stirling to build solar dish engine power plant*

*Goal is to deploy solar dish farms with 20,000 units producing energy*


	Solar Talk*SANDIA RESEARCHER Chuck Andraka, left, talks with Bob Liden, 
Stirling Energy's executive vice president and general manager.* (Photo 
by Randy Montoya)
* Download 300dpi JPEG image, 'solartalk.jpg', 912K 
<http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2004/images/jpg/solar-talk.jpg> 
*(Media are welcome to download/publish this image with related news 
stories.)

*View Solar Dish video 
<http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2004/renew-energy-batt/stirling.mp4>*

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The National Nuclear Security Administration's 
Sandia National Laboratories is joining forces with Stirling Energy 
Systems, Inc. (SES) of Phoenix to build and test six new solar 
dish-engine systems for electricity generation that will provide enough 
grid-ready solar electricity to power more than 40 homes.

Five new systems will be installed between now and January at Sandia's 
National Solar Thermal Test Facility. They will join a prototype 
dish-Stirling system that was erected earlier this year, making a 
six-dish mini power plant producing up to 150kW of grid-ready electrical 
power during the day.

"This will be the largest array of solar dish-Stirling systems in the 
world," says Chuck Andraka, the Sandia project leader. "Ultimately SES 
envisions 20,000 systems to be placed in one or more solar dish farms 
and providing electricity to southwest U.S. utility companies."

Sandia and SES staff will work together over the next couple of months 
to assemble the five new state-of-the-art systems.

Stirling Engine*SANDIA RESEARCHER Chuck Andraka makes adjustments to a 
Stirling Energy Systems, Inc. solar dish-engine system installed at 
Sandia's National Solar Test Facility earlier this year. Five more will 
be erected by January as test units.* (Photo by Randy Montoya)
* Download 300dpi JPEG image, 'stirling-engine.jpg', 1.1MB 
<http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2004/images/jpg/stirling-engine.jpg>*(Media 
are welcome to download/publish this image with related news stories.)

Each dish unit, which consists of 82 smaller mirrors formed in the shape 
of a dish, will be similar to the system installed earlier this year 
with some modifications to improve the design. The frame is steel made 
by Schuff Steel, also of Phoenix, while the mirrors, provided by 
Paneltec of Lafayette, Colo., are laminated onto a honeycomb aluminum 
structure invented and patented in the late 1990s by Sandia researcher 
Rich Diver (6218). The engine will be assembled at Sandia's test 
facility using parts that were contracted out by SES.

Once the units are installed, Sandia and SES researchers will experiment 
with the systems to determine how best they can be integrated in a 
field, as well as improving reliability and performance.

"It's one thing to have one system that we can operate, but it's a whole 
other thing to have six that must work in unison," Andraka says.

Each unit operates automatically. Without operator intervention or even 
on-site presence, it starts up each morning at dawn and operates 
throughout the day, tracking the sun and responding to clouds and wind 
as needed. Finally it shuts itself down at sunset. The system can be 
monitored and controlled over the Internet. Researchers want to make the 
six systems work together with the same level of automation. The 
controls and software that perform this integration will be scalable to 
much larger facilities.

The solar dish generates electricity by focusing the sun's rays onto a 
receiver, which transmits the heat energy to an engine. The engine is a 
sealed system filled with hydrogen, and as the gas heats and cools, its 
pressure rises and falls. The change in pressure drives the pistons 
inside the engine, producing mechanical power. The mechanical power in 
turn drives a generator and makes electricity.


	Solar Field*AN ARTIST'S rendering of a field of dish-Stirling engine 
systems.*
* Download 300dpi JPEG image, 'solar-field.jpg', 912K 
<http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2004/images/jpg/solar-field.jpg> 
*(Media are welcome to download/publish this image with related news 
stories.)

The cost for each prototype unit is about $150,000. Once in production 
SES estimates that the cost could be reduced to less than $50,000 each, 
which would make the cost of electricity competitive with conventional 
fuel technologies.

Bob Liden, SES executive vice president and general manager, says solar 
electric generation dish arrays are an option for power in parts of the 
country that are sunny like New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada. 
They could be linked together to provide utility-scale power. A solar 
dish farm covering 11 square miles hypothetically could produce as much 
electricity per year as Hoover Dam, and a farm 100 miles by 100 miles in 
the southwestern U.S. could provide as much electricity as is needed to 
power the entire country.

"Another application could be to operate as stand-alone units in remote 
areas off the grid, such as the Navajo reservation, and supply power to 
one or several homes," Liden says. Stand-alone units have already been 
demonstrated as an effective means of pumping water in rural areas.

He notes the dish-Stirling system works at higher efficiencies than any 
other current solar technologies, with a net solar-to-electric 
conversion efficiency reaching 30 percent. Each unit can produce up to 
25 kilowatts of daytime power.

"This is the perfect type of electricity generation for the Southwest," 
Liden says. "It's a renewable resource, it's pollution free, and the 
maintenance of a solar farm is minimal."

One of the system's advantages is that it is "somewhat modular," and the 
size of the facility can be ramped up over a period of time, Andraka 
says. That is compared to a traditional power plant or other large-scale 
solar technologies that have to be completely built before they are 
operational.

The cooperation between SES and Sandia is seen as critical to the 
success of this technology. This on-site teaming is a new way of doing 
business in the energy field and is being watched with interest at DOE 
headquarters, Andraka says. "There is no more effective way of providing 
technology transfer," he says.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a 
Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National 
Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia has major R&D responsibilities 
in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and 
economic competitiveness.

*Sandia Media Contact:* Chris Burroughs, coburro AT sandia.gov 
<mailto:coburro AT sandia.gov>, (505) 844-0948

*Sandia Technical Contact:* Chuck Andraka, ceandra AT sandia.gov 
<mailto:ceandra AT sandia.gov>, (505) 844-8573

*Stirling Energy Systems Contact:* Robert Liden, 
rliden AT stirlingenergy.com <mailto:rliden AT stirlingenergy.com>, (602) 
957-1818

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