This system can be constructed anywhere sustainable energy, water and cool air are not adequately available. It can be built at relatively cheaper costs – three times lower than comparable systems.
The Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation has awarded a three-year grant of $2.4m to scientists at IBM Research; Airlight Energy, a supplier of solar power technology; ETH Zurich (Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers) and Interstate University of Applied Sciences Buchs NTB (Institute for Micro- and Nanotechnology MNT) to develop an economical High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system.
According to a study by the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association and Greenpeace International, just 2% of the Sahara Desert’s land area is enough to supply the world’s total electricity requirements. However, the solar technologies currently available in the market are too costly, slow to produce, need rare Earth minerals and are inefficienct to make such massive installations practical.
The prototype system uses a large parabolic dish, made from a multitude of mirror facets, linked to a tracking system that determines the best angle based on Sun’s position.
Once aligned, the sun’s rays reflect off the mirror onto several microchannel-liquid cooled receivers with triple junction photovoltaic chips of each 1x1cm. In the sunny region, on an average, these chips can convert 200-250 watts during a usual eight hour day.
Once the hundreds of chips are combined by the entire receiver, it provides 25KW of electrical power. The chips are mounted on microstructured layers which pipe liquid coolants within a few tens of micrometers off the chip to absorb the heat and draw it away. This is ten times more effective than the passive air cooling.
The pipe liquid coolants maintain the chips at nearly the same temperature for a solar concentration of 2,000 times. The coolants can also keep them at safe temperatures up to a solar concentration of 5,000 times.
The hierarchical branched blood supply system of the human body has served as an inspiration for the pumping power for the cooling.
