New mirror for startups for a solar energy breakthrough: better than solar collectors & power plants

It consists of this plastic matrix, which holds these rectangles of an ordinary glass mirror, and now you will see how a similar composite mirror focuses solar radiation to this point.

You can easily calculate that the total cost of manufacturing and installing these mirrors is between 15 and 30 dollars per square meter. It is about 10 times cheaper than these mirrors, which are used to produce large amounts of thermal energy and electricity. It is obvious that such a radical reduction in the cost of mirrors makes their electricity cheaper than from solar panels, or from thermal and nuclear power plants, and the thermal energy from that mirror is cheaper than heat from conventional solar collectors.

That is why let's look at what problems will be encountered by a start-up that aims to cover many square kilometers with similar cheap mirrors to produce huge amounts of cheap electricity and heat. We take an example from this Indian solar plant, where these concave mirrors focus solar radiation into these receivers which absorb the radiation and convert it into steam for a turbine. It is obvious that this point should be the location of a similar receiver, this dark surface will be heated by solar radiation and therefore heat the liquid which must circulates through these tubes.

We also understand that the mirrors should form approximately such rows, and here we see 3 receivers of one short row. For example, this receiver is the focus point of the solar radiation of these mirrors, but the number of these mirrors should be several hundred, and these dimensions should be several meters. This pipe is a path for the circulation of that liquid which is heated by the receivers, and the pipe must be covered with thermal insulation.

The receivers must move from morning to evening, according to the movement of the sun across the sky, and my previous videos often showed how solar radiation from mirrors hits receivers during a day. Also, my future videos will show this experiment for different months where mirrors were installed in a plastic matrix. Also, my previous videos often showed this device, which can simultaneously move several dozen receivers of one row.

In addition, we must change the location of the receivers in this way approximately 10 times a year, and now I am showing how I do it in my solar station, and we see that it is a simple and quick action, about 5 seconds for several square meters. These 2 old videos described several types of receiver mounts, where this is the 1st type, this is the 2nd type, and this is the 3rd type.

So, that start-up should have machines for cutting mirror sheets into rectangles with dimensions of approximately 20 or 30 centimeters. Also it must order or manufacture these plastic matrices, and it must have production lines for making cheap receivers, their mounts and their pipes. In addition, that startup must have machines which automate the installation of mirrors and receivers to reduce the total cost of construction to this level of cost of mirrors and this level of total cost of receivers.

If that startup more or less achieves these goals, the cost of its solar thermal energy will be like this, 1 cent / kWh, and it is 2 or 3 times cheaper than the cost of heat from these traditional solar collectors. It is not surprising because the total cost of manufacturing and installation of these solar collectors is approximately 5 times more than the total cost of these mirrors with receivers. Therefore, that start-up could create competition for these solar collectors which heat water for heating greenhouses. Or our receivers can heat an antifreeze liquid, replacing these solar collectors, the thermal energy of which is used for district heating of cities. Or we can remember these solar collectors which heat water for various industrial processes in factories and plants. At the same time, our mirrors not only have a lower cost, but also higher heating temperatures, for generating steam and other industrial processes with temperatures up to 300 ⁰C.

But let's assume that the start-up set a more complex goal - to build solar power plants with millions of mirrors over an area of ​​tens of square kilometers. We take an example from this type of solar power plants, about a hundred of which have already been built, and now I will quickly remind you how they work. When the sun appears, its radiation is focused by the mirrors and heats thermal oil inside these receivers to temperatures of almost 400 ⁰C. This hot oil moves to the center of the solar plant, where its proportion produces steam for a turbine which generates electricity. The rest of the oil comes to such heat storages, where the oil heats tens of thousands of tons of molten salt to a temperature of almost 400 ⁰C.