Suncatcher™ Power Systems to Revolutionize Solar Power

Sterling Energy Systems and Tessera Solar recently introduced four brand new solar power collection dishes at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF).  The two companies teamed up to work jointly on the project which will increase production rate and cut costs.

The new dishes, appropriately named Suncatchers™, will be ready for commercial sale in 2010.

Chuck Andraka, lead Sandia project engineer, says that “the four new dishes are the next-generation models of the original SunCatcher system. Six first-generation SunCatchers built over the past several years at the NSTTF have been producing up to 150KW of grid-ready electrical power during the day. Every part of the new system has been upgraded to allow for a high rate of production and cost reduction.”

The Suncatchers are about 5,000 lbs lighter than previous models, are round shaped instead of rectangular, and consists of 50% fewer engine parts. Sandia’s contribution gives Suncatchers a definitive edge, as they have installed a newly developed device that will measure how well the mirrors operate in less than 10 seconds.  Previous devices which performed this same function took up to an hour to determine output.

Steve Cowman, CEO for Stirling Energy Systems says that “the new design of the SunCatcher represents more than a decade of innovative engineering and validation testing, making it ready for commercialization. By utilizing the automotive supply chain to manufacture the SunCatcher, we’re leveraging the talents of an industry that has refined high-volume production through an assembly line process. More than 90 percent of the SunCatcher components will be manufactured in North America.”

Thanks to www.alternative-energy-news.info for the above quotes, for more information view the article on their website.