Ready to Catch the Sun

Capturing the sun's energy can be simple. Just look at any farm, and you'll see greenhouse technology that's been in use for hundreds of years.

At Sandia Labs, though, everything is high tech. That's because the labs have been at the cutting edge of almost every major scientific breakthrough of the 20th and 21th century, from the invention of the atomic bomb to the development of the supercomputer.

Now, the Labs, in collaboration with Stirling Energy Systems (SES) and Tessera Solar, are putting their powers to use for the public good with the development of huge, high-tech solar collectors call SunCatchers. How do they work? You can bet they don't just wait for a warm sunny day.

Here's how their process is described in Science Daily: "Mirrors attached to a parabolic dish focus the sun’s rays onto a receiver, which transmits the heat to a Stirling engine. The engine is a sealed system filled with hydrogen. As the gas heats and cools, its pressure rises and falls. The change in pressure drives the piston inside the engine, producing mechanical power, which in turn drives a generator and makes electricity."

SunCatchers have already set records for energy efficiency. If all goes well, they'll be deployed as power generators by 2010, generating about 1.5 megawatts (one megawatt powers about 800 homes). Assuming that goes well, the next step will be deployment of two of the world's largest solar power plants in the Mojave Desert.

Sandia Labs thinks big, and SunCatcher is no exception. The projects are expected to produce 1,000 Megawatts (enough to power 800,000 homes) by the end of 2012.

Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories.