Solar Parabolic Stirling dish

[vamoose]

Here's some stuff I thought may be of interest, to those who haven’t come across it already.
Its from one of the companies making commercially viable stirling engine technology a reality.

Ever wondered what thousands of stirling engines running together might sound like?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... o7Ik0&NR=1
and some more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEIQ2FVL_ys

Has engine components visible on bench towards end of video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN2Wcy2khuE

Slow, but gives a good visual pan over the dish and engine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLYJlpEOMcA

best part starts from about 50 seconds in, and goes for a little bit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evkuwvKJ-c

buildaroo, interview with sales rep.. worth a watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4b2jPxbLgc

'Discovery' selection.
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other ... engine.htm

vamoose

[RonT]

It looks like we could expect more of these arrays to be built. The noise level in the array was higher than I expected, that will probably come down as the technology matures. A couple of questions weren't addressed though, such as what the mean time before failure was, and maintenance costs. There are still a lot of moving parts and while a solar trough heat collector may be significantly less efficient it is a simple system. And how quickly will output drop off as the engine pistons wear? Overall it does look encouraging, a clean, made and supported close to home, source of green energy. Thanks for posting the links. Ron

[Geoff V]

I had heard that a company like the one in the videos, maybe the same company, had stopped trading because of the noise of the SE's, if it is the same, then I'm not surprised, the engine noise is not only horrendous, but quite unnecessary. It's time they engaged a proper design engineer before all SE's get a bad reputation for noise pollution, you won't hear this level of noise from the likes of Whispergen, Mahle, Nasa, et al.

GeoffV

[johnmaster]

Great links!

[Ian S C]

Apart from an indicator light, the only way to tell if the Whispergen is going is to place a hand on the cabinet, and you will feel a very faint vibration, it could sit in your living room, going, and you would not notice it. Ian S C

[Geoff V]

Sorry to say Guys, my memory is still OK, just.

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/solar-strug ... ankruptcy/

GeoffV

[stirlingmotion]

I think the sound in the video is exaggerated as often happens with digital still cameras taking video clips. This company received a very large contract a few years ago to install many hundreds of these engines in the Mojave Desert for California Edison. While they had successfully installed a few dozen of them on an experimental basis in Arizona and elsewhere (also at NASA), in the end they were unable to scale up production required for the California project. At one time they were planning to develop production using revamped auto manufacturing facilities around Detroit. But in the end they failed and I don't think the company is now in business. Certainly many, many millions were invested in this project and it was sad to see a potentially large stirling business fail.

The Rider-Ericsson Engine Co. of the 19th-early 20th century still remains in history as the largest stirling company ever (unfortunately). John Ericsson made the first working model solar-powered stirling engine using a parabolic reflector in 1872, but in the end he concluded that solar-powered steam engines were more practical. Ericsson devoted the last decade of his life to work on solar power.

[RonT]

The difficulty making out the small groups of people talking led me to believe that the background generator noise was higher than expected.

For decades I've been reading about efforts to produce green affordable energy, its discouraging seeing one promising idea after another fail. Maybe someday we'll see affordable practical products available to the market at competitive prices, hopefully in my lifetime.
Ron (in Yellowknife)

[vamoose]

Well that's a bummer!
I didn't realise the company had gone down the tube. Thanks for the heads up Geoff.
I hope the videos are still of some general interest to everyone though.
I was also surprised by the noise levels. Maybe management were more interested in pushing the system out there before it was truly market ready. I've seen things like this happen before. All the CEO's get their huge bonuses for meeting targets, and then a few years later once they have moved on, the cracks start showing and it all goes to crap.
Its a shame that such a large investment in peoples efforts (and large amounts of renewable energy funding) all came to zipp. Although i'm sure there were some well connected people who ended up with very healthy bank balances along the way.
If I sound like a cynic I’d rather be that, than ignorant and gullible.

I guess there still would be some beneficial flow on from the research and knowledge gained from such a large project.
If anyone has information and links from other solar related Stirling Engine projects please share it..
vamoose

[Geoff V]

Vamoose

My sentiments exactly, didn't like to say as much for fear of being accused a cycnic, but I think you're spot on, sadly.

GeoffV