Thermal Electric Solar Technology Comparison

1. Thermal Solar Electricity Generation. This technology is just a special corner of the "concentrated active solar heating" technology mentioned above. Here, a lens or mirror system is used to concentrate the light of the sun on an active solar collection system. The heat collected is then used to generate electricity. The electricity generation can very. Common forms of generation include high temperature steam engines, Stirling engines, semiconductor based thermal electric power generators (Seeback effect). This technology has the advantage that it can potentially supply power for some time after the sun stops shinning. Here the relatively low cost collection and thermal storage is used to power the more expensive generation systems around the clock which offers a theoretical four times utilization improvement over PV technologies.

2. Hybrid Thermal Solar Electricity Generation. This technology is based upon its non-hybrid cousin except that it incorporates "cogeneration" techniques where the unused heat expelled after electrical power generation is then used for domestic hot water heating or space heating. These systems have a high degree of complexity, but are not particularly dangerous. Given the promise of a faster pay off, this technology may be appropriate for skilled "do it yourselfers". This is the type of system I will concentrate on developing in this web site.