Dish Stirling solar power plants. They inspire awe and wonder to those who have seen the experimental solar thermal units. Looking like massive, twisted satellite dishes on steroids, concocted by quixotic, mad-scientists — the power plants aren’t designed to capture man-made frequencies, but the sun’s powerful and omnipresent solar energy instead.
Phoenix, Arizona – April 23, 2004 [SolarAccess.com] Next Tuesday, April 27, in Phoenix, Arizona, the experimental technology will take a major leap towards commercialization with the unveiling of a new “productionized” 25 kW unit, along with a new manufacturing facility to mass-produce the dishes. This development stems from a partnership between Stirling Energy Systems (SES), which owns the patents on Dish Stirling technology, and Schuff Steel, with the manufacturing capacity to make commercialization a reality. SES and Schuff Steel have teamed together to produce this new structure. Schuff is already in the process of making five more dishes to deliver to Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico by early Fall. Ten more dishes are planned to be built in 2005 for Arizona Public Service, and 40 more are scheduled for release next year for installation in Southern Nevada at a U.S. Department of Energy dish demonstration project. SES is confident their technology will stack up against all other forms of solar power generation, citing the solar dish engine technology (of which this dish structure is a major component) as “the world’s most efficient solar-electric generating technology.” These dishes can be installed in single distributed-generation applications or massed in large numbers to make utility-scale solar power plants for installation in the deserts of Arizona and the rest of the Southwest U.S.
