This is really exciting! Infinia Corporation, who makes stirling energy systems, has received a $50 million investment to prepare its new Stirling solar engine for market in 2008.
www.news.com/8301-11128_...8931-54.html
Some of you may be familiar with Sterling Energy Systems (www.stirlingenergy.com/), which has a couple of huge contracts with major electric providers to build two of the world's largest solar energy plants in the California and Arizona deserts. SES has yet to do so, as they followed the method of building a prototype and then attempting to scale it down for mass manufacture. Right now, each dish is still too expensive to manufacture the numbers they need to fulfill their contract and turn a profit.
Infinia claims it does not have this problem. Their system was designed from day one with mass manufacture in mind.
Another advantage of their system is that it is smaller, less expensive, and can be utilized in remote locations more easily for both of these reasons.
Check out their web site: www.infiniacorp.com/main.php
They also make a gas-powered Sterling electric generator for home use, which they apparently only plan to market in Europe and Asia. Why not North and South America, I wonder...or Africa? Are Europeans and Asians the only people wise enough to buy this tech? Things that make you go, "hmmmmmmm...."
www.news.com/8301-11128_...8931-54.html
Some of you may be familiar with Sterling Energy Systems (www.stirlingenergy.com/), which has a couple of huge contracts with major electric providers to build two of the world's largest solar energy plants in the California and Arizona deserts. SES has yet to do so, as they followed the method of building a prototype and then attempting to scale it down for mass manufacture. Right now, each dish is still too expensive to manufacture the numbers they need to fulfill their contract and turn a profit.
Infinia claims it does not have this problem. Their system was designed from day one with mass manufacture in mind.
Another advantage of their system is that it is smaller, less expensive, and can be utilized in remote locations more easily for both of these reasons.
Check out their web site: www.infiniacorp.com/main.php
They also make a gas-powered Sterling electric generator for home use, which they apparently only plan to market in Europe and Asia. Why not North and South America, I wonder...or Africa? Are Europeans and Asians the only people wise enough to buy this tech? Things that make you go, "hmmmmmmm...."
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Los Angeles
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Re: Infinia gets $50 million investment for stirling solar
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 6:50 AMHi Evan,
Nice post. I saw from the website that they are planning deployment for southern Spain which is an area of PV that i am familiar with. The sterling array seems interesting but I see a couple of challenges: the single-pole, double axis tracker design just doesn´t strike me as robust. I´ve seen some of the PV trackers bent or ripped out of the ground in Germany during last years wind storms (I´ve got photos) which makes skeptical that this would be low-maintenance. Secondly, any cloud-cover practically wipes out electricity generation on Fresnel lens designs, so I imagine it would be the same for this type of CSP. You´d be gambling on 25 years of good weather whereas thin-film panels can still produce under lower-visibility conditions.
Last issue is the basic financing challenges: for a truly large-scale deployment of this new kind of technology, project finance banks will require enormous parent company guarantees for the duration of the debt. Equipment financing is still relatively new even within the traditional PV installations despite the fact that the technology has been in use for 40 years.
Regardless, its a funky design. If the price is right, might be interesting. However, I think even small-scale residential markets would find it impractical for rooftops.
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Re: Infinia gets $50 million investment for stirling solar
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 2:31 PMHi William,
Yeah, these are not for rooftop or neighborhood systems. They are for power generation facilities.
A stirling engine makes noise, and plenty of it. My understanding is that they're like a leafblower or vacuum cleaner. Wouldn't want that on your roof going every sunlit hour of every day. It would drive you nuts.
My understanding is that because these are based on stirling engines, which require a heat differential to run, that they don't require direct sunlight, and that cloud cover days would be fine, as long as the clouds are not TOO thick.
Solar thermal (stirling dishes are one type out of many) is a big part of the future of solar. I think we can pretty much count on no more traditional PV applications at the power generation facility level after about another 5-10 years. Solar PV will become HCPV instead. Regular PV is about to go the way of the dodo - at least as far as building a full scale commercial power generation facility goes.
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Re: Infinia gets $50 million investment for stirling solar
Mon, April 21, 2008 - 10:16 PMInfinia lands more cash for solar technology
A little more than two months ago Kennewick-based Infinia announced a whopping $50 million venture round from GLG Partners, Khosla Ventures, Vulcan Capital, Idealab and others.
Apparently that wasn't enough for the company, which is developing a new system that utilizes parabolic dishes and Stirling engines to convert the sun's rays into energy. Today, Infinia is announcing an additional $7 million led by strategic investor Foxconn Technology Group, one of the largest contract manufacturers in the world. An undisclosed investor also participated.
Infinia Chief Executive J.D. Sitton says in a press release:
"Securing the involvement of a manufacturer and technology provider of Foxconn's stature validates two key elements of our business plan. First, that volume manufacturing is a key driver in being able to harvest solar energy on a capital-efficient basis. And second, that the Asia-Pacific market is going to be a very attractive market for our product."
blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/vent...6.asp
