Email

Print

Heat and Energy Efficiency News

Silicon Valley firms test out solar air conditioning

The MCT module can concentrate solar heat by 25 times, generating temperatures up to 428 degrees Fahrenheit

Two Silicon Valley companies have teamed up to demonstrate a new concentrated solar thermal energy technology for building rooftops.

Industrial rooftop solar specialist Chromasun is partnering with solar thermal technology integrator SunWater Solar to deploy the first Micro-Concentrator (MCT) solar cooling system in California.

The system is being demonstrated at Santa Clara University’s 2007 Solar Decathlon House.

Essentially, the MCT technology is like a utility-scale solar thermal plant on a much smaller scale, repackaged for use on buildings.

It uses a flat-panel solar collector, in which is contained a series of highly-reflective, lightweight aluminum mirrors, supplied by Germany’s Alanod-Solar, which focus sunlight on a specially-coated stainless steel pipe to deliver heat.

The mirrors concentrate the solar to 25 times the strength of normal sunlight, while the heat-transfer pipe can generate temperatures up to 220 degrees centigrade (428°F).

Contained within a sealed canopy safe from the elements, the mirrors can track the sun to maintain the optimum energy collection.

Cooling

The MCT will be used to provide clean, renewable thermal energy for air conditioning, space heating and hot water.

In particular, the project partners aim to show how the MCT module can use solar energy for commercial and industrial cooling needs, particularly during peak times during hot summer days, when electricity prices are high.

Peter Le Lievre, founder and CEO of Chromasun, said: “The new MCT delivers customers the ability to conveniently harvest utility-grade solar energy right from their rooftop. A solar installation of this type makes both economic and environmental sense for many homes, schools and industrial buildings.”

The companies said that the MCT was easy to install, mounted on the same kind of racking systems as conventional flat-panel solar thermal collectors.

They also said it offered an “exceptional” efficiency with no external moving parts.

“Solar thermal technology is already proven as a cost-effective way to heat water for commercial and industrial facilities,” said Justin Weil, president of Richmond-based SunWater Solar.

“Our work with Chromasun is demonstrating that solar thermal is also an efficient way to cool large buildings, which brings the technology’s financial and environmental benefits to an innovative new application.”

University

An added bonus for the project will be in allowing students at Santa Clara University to find out more about new solar thermal technologies.

The 2007 solar-powered house at the University was the result of a collaboration between more than 80 students from the university’s School of Engineering.

Located on campus, the building generates enough electricity to run a modern household.

“This collaboration is a perfect example of how Santa Clara University continues to work with Silicon Valley companies to expose our students to their most cutting edge technologies,” said Professor Timothy Hight, department chair of mechanical engineering at SCU. “We can use this technology to demonstrate and explain to students newer ways to collect solar thermal energy, and collect and measure the data in real time.”