In the Dutch and German press today the news that the Germans are hoarding incandescent lamps. From September 1st, 2009 it is forbidden to produce or import incandescent lamps in Germany, but apparently the Germans are so attached to their lamps that they are stocking them in large numbers. The arguments against energy-efficient lamps are always the same: cold light, not dimmable, need time to warm up, ugly, contain mercury, don’t last as long as promised, expensive and they would emit electromagnetic radiation. Nearly all these arguments can be proven wrong, but it seems like the ‘anti-energy-efficient-lamp’ sentiments are more because it is involuntary then because of anything else. That’s a pity because energy efficient lamps save a lot of energy (and thus, money) while in use there’s hardly or no difference with an incendescent lamp when the right lamp in the right application is chosen. It would seem there is still a lot of work to be done in the area of information about energy efficient lamps. Continue reading →

Concentrated Solar Power

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) has been around in several forms and shapes. One of the most promising forms is the stirling dish in which a parabolic dish is lined with mirrors which concentrate the sunlight on a stirling engine in the focal point, which turns a generator which produces electricity. Stirling dishes have been deployed experimentally in small groups, but large scale construction never started because of high costs.

In the US at the Sandia National Laboratories fout stirling dishes names Suncatchers have beenpresented which should change this. The number of parts used in construction of the dishes has been reduced greatly, and many of the parts can be mass-produced in car-factories. This should reduce cost dramatically which should in turn lower the cost of the produced electricity. Because the ‘fuel’ (sunlight) is free, the price of electricity is mainly determined by construction and maintenance costs.

This is a very modular and therefore scalable system; it doesn’t matter if ten or a thousend units are installed, the only thing that needs to be changed is te thickness of the cable collecting te electricity and feeding it into the grid. Another nice advantage of this system is that it’s quite easy to run the stirling motors on natural gas when there’s no sun. The only thing that needs to be done for that is a gas line needs to be run to the receiver in the focal point, and the installation of an efficient burner with the stirling motor.

Because this system only works in direct sunlight – the diffuse light that’s present when it’s cloudy can’t be concentrated – it works best in really sunny climates. This system could work well in regions like Southern Spain and Italy, but would really work well in Northern-Africa.