A U.S. and Australian partnership has introduced a new solar thermal storage approach it believes could be disruptive to the fledgling solar storage industry.
Unveiling it for the first time at the World Future Summit in Abu Dhabi, Solar Fusion Power Director Wayne Bliesner described the system as having ten times the density of conventional molten salt solar storage.
"Twenty-four hour solar storage becomes easy with this technology," he told the Cleantech Group. "We could do thirty to forty hours."
The company's approach uses calcium hydride, a simple, non-toxic salt.
Under Solar Fusion's plan, solar heat is collected by an array of heliostats directed to a central down mirror, eliminating the requirement for a power tower.
The heat, focused on a power head immersed in liquid calcium, chemically separates the calcium and hydrogen during the day. At night, the hydrogen, having been collected in a separate tank, is pumped back and reacts with the calcium to reform as calcium hydride.
The reaction runs at approximately 1,000 degrees, and powers a dual shell Stirling engine of Bliesner's design to create power after dark.
"We can generate electricity continuously unlike other solar technologies," said Bleisner, inventor of the technology and a former Boeing engineer.
Molten salts are currently being used to store solar thermal energy in the U.S., Spain and elsewhere (see Concentrated solar gets salty and SolarReserve pulls in cash for solar thermal). But Solar Fusion claims to be unique in using an exothermic (heat-releasing) chemical reaction, not merely physically heating and cooling the salt.
The company estimates the cost of the system to be on par with fossil fuels.
Solar Fusion is currently productizing is technology in 100 kilowatt modules, aimed at diesel genset replacement in rural Australia to prove the commercial viability of its system. It then intends to be able to scale its approach modularly to the megawatt level.
The company is an investment of EMC Solar, a pooled development fund for Australian investors that has already invested in solar projects in Australia. It says it is actively inviting up to $8 million further investment into Solar Fusion from other parties.
The World Future Energy Summit was the first large-scale introduction of the company's solution.
"We're out of the closet as of today," said EMC Managing Director John Davidson.
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