Xcel Energy joins project testing solar-fuelled CHP system

July 23, 2010

Utility Xcel Energy is to work with Colorado company Cool Energy on the first planned installation of its new solar combined heat and power system, dubbed SolarFlow.

The pilot project will be installed in a commercial building in Boulder, Colorado.

The technology uses only solar energy as its input fuel to provide both heat and electricity.

It uses a type of Stirling engine – called a SolarHeart Engine – to generate electricity from the heat generated by solar collectors, using energy storage and control systems to match its heat and electricity outputs to season and weather conditions.

Stirling engines are a kind of external combustion engine, a little like a steam engine, except that they use the expansion and contraction of a fixed quantity of a gas to drive a piston. The gas expands and contracts by heating and cooling.

Cool Energy said this first field test for its technology would be using a third-generation SolarHeart Engine that has generated more than two kilowatts of electrical power in laboratory conditions.

Potential

Sam Weaver, CEO and President of Cool Energy, said the SolarFlow technology could provide “substantial” financial relief for homeowners, as well as helping utilities cope with peak consumption periods.

Mr Weaver said: “Having such features as thermal storage and smart grid-compatible control of the energy produced, a significant scale deployment of the system has the potential for improving a utility’s overall operational efficiency.”

Xcel Energy, which has its head office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serves customers in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin.

The firm said it saw Cool Energy’s work as providing possible answers to the energy challenges being faced in the US.

Dennis Stephens, the utility’s director of smart grid investments, said: “Xcel Energy is pleased to be involved in the benefits evaluation of Cool Energy’s innovative solar thermal system. The energy industry is particularly interested in the potential to provide dispatchable power on demand at times when energy consumption is high.”

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