Better appliances to work with rooftop solar PV systems

Households and businesses with rooftop solar PV systems produce so much electricity in the middle of the day that feed-in tariffs are going down fast, and there are moves afoot to be able to turn them off to avoid overloading the electricity grid with surplus electricity. 

However electricity bills are kept high by the price of electricity that increases in the mid to late afternoon as air-conditioning loads increase at the same time solar PV output is falling. 

If your business or household is exporting a large amount of electricity in the middle of the day, and paying a large amount for electricity used later in the day, more suitable appliances can be available to save you money.

There are air-conditioning options that can shift energy use from late afternoon, when cooling is needed, to the middle of the day, when electricity from solar PV systems is at a peak. 

An insulated storage tank that holds 3,000 litres of water costs about $4,000 - using a "Slim Steel" water tank, R7.0 ceiling insulation and a garden storage shed - all available at Bunnings. 

Kingspan 3000L Slim Steel Water Tank - 850mm x 1860mm x 2300mm - $2,695

Cooling 3,000 litres of water from 20℃ to 5℃ uses about 18 kWh of electricity - assuming a water chiller with a co-efficient of performance (COP) of 3 is used.

The cooling can be done in the middle of the day using only solar PV generated electricity. 

The chilled water is then available for air-conditioning later in the day - avoiding the need to run reverse-cycle air-conditioners using electricity from the National Electricity Market - where the price can go as high as $15,000 per MWh ($15 per kWh) in some 5-minute intervals.  

Water Source Heat Pumps (WSHP) use chilled water to cool the air in summer, (or heated water to warm air in winter) unlike typical reverse cycle units which rely on external fan assisted condensers to exchange energy with the outside air.

Electric vehicles make solar power mobile

Solar PV systems can reduce electricity bills for many families and businesses.

Unfortunately this isn't the case for families who rent because properties available for rent rarely have solar panels installed.

Even for families who do have solar PV systems, the savings aren't that great when everyone is at work or school during the the day when the sun is shining and the solar energy output is mostly being fed into the grid.

There is another way to supply solar energy to these households and help them cut their electricity bills.

Many businesses are saving on their power bills by installing solar panels, but the savings would be greater if they had batteries to provide power early in the day and late in the afternoon when the output of the solar system is below the midday peak output.

Suppose a business with a solar PV sysytem buys 4 or 5 electric vehicles that can deliver electricity from their batteries - the Nissan Leaf with a 40 kilowatt-hour battery is one electric vehicle designed for this role -  and leases them to its workers to be used in the following way:

• The worker drives the electric vehicle to work each morning and plugs it into a power exchange socket where it provides electricity to the business whenever electricity use is greater than the output of the solar PV system AND has its battery recharged whenever there is excess solar energy being produced. 
• The worker drives the car home each day after work and plugs it into a power exchange socket where it powers the home - with solar energy stored during the day while at work - during the evening peak period when electricity prices are at their greatest. 
• By late evening or early morning, if the car battery charge has fallen below the level that is needed for the morning peak period to prepare breakfast and for the commute to work, some additional energy from the grid is stored in the battery - again at off-peak rates.
• ...and so on, each day.

This may make electric vehicles a better investment than just assessing their value as a replacement for a simple petrol-fueled vehicle. They can provide electricity as backup generators for businesses when solar energy output is less than the amount of electricity used and they can let workers take solar energy home. This is especially valuable for anyone who lives in rented accommodation and/or lives in one of the many households where all the members are away from the home during daytime.

The following video uploaded in 2013 describes the process in 2 minutes. At that time, the Nissan Leaf had only a 24 kilowatt-hour battery. The recently released model has a 40 kilowatt-hour battery. 

One application of the technology is described in Adam Vaughan's the article published in The Guardian on October 3, 2017:

Electric car owners 'can drive for free by letting energy firms use battery' 

Electric car owners will be paid for letting an energy company use their vehicle’s battery in a pioneering scheme to increase take-up of the cleaner vehicles and help power grids manage the growth in green energy.

Nissan and one of the UK’s biggest challenger energy suppliers, Ovo, will offer the “vehicle-to-grid” service to buyers of the Japanese carmaker’s new Leaf from next year.

After installing a special charger in a customer’s home, the supplier will take over the management of the car’s battery, with owners able to set a minimum amount of charge they want for driving the next day. Ovo will then automatically trade electricity from the battery, topping it up during off-peak periods when power costs about 4p per kilowatt hour (kWh), and selling it at peak times for about four times as much.

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Practical Energy

The requirement statement for practical energy -

What can be done collectively to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy? https://t.co/5JmelgXzIF

— IEA (@IEA) April 12, 2017

The answer is surprisingly simple.

There are 4 or 5 processes that do more-or-less the same thing in slightly different ways. Each was designed with a different purpose in mind, but that doesn't mean they can't be used for other purposes the designers hadn't considered.

Bioenergy, waste-to-energy, renewable energy storage as synthetic natural gas, biogas and synthetic natural gas from coal are different ways of doing the same thing.

Synthetic natural gas can be used to store energy, to generate electricity on demand, and as feedstock in manufacturing processes. Synthetic natural gas can also be manufactured for export in the form of LNG.

It can be made from 100 percent renewable energy, 100 percent fossil fuel energy, or some combination of both renewable and fossil energy. This allows a transition to a 100 percent renewable energy future, achieving the  above requirement statement: ensuring reliable, affordable and clean energy.

The underlying process combines carbon dioxide, water and energy to create methane and oxygen:

CO₂ + 2H₂O → CH₄ + 2O₂

• Photosynthesis by plants and algae to create biomass that methanogenic bacteria convert to methane is one way of doing this with solar energy.
• Waste-to-energy can use methanogenic bacteria to produce methane using the solar energy embedded in the waste.  
• Electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen that is reacted with carbon dioxide to make methane is another way of doing this with solar PV systems and wind turbines.
• Biomass can be converted to methane in high temperature superheated water reactors. The thermal energy to do this can be from concentrated solar thermal energy, or from reaction with either oxygen or hydrogen created by electrolysis of water.
• Biomass can be converted to methane in very high temperature gasifiers that create carbon monoxide and hydrogen that is reacted in a separate step to create methane. The energy for this high temperature process can be obtained by burning a portion of the feedstock in air. 

In each of the above processes that use biomass to produce methane, coal can be used in place of some or all of biomass.

When there is sufficient solar PV and wind turbine generating capacity, hydrogen can be produced whenever electricity supply exceeds demand. This hydrogen can be reacted with carbon dioxide to make methane for generating electricity whenever demand exceeds the supply.

With sufficient renewable energy generating capacity, synthetic natural gas can be manufactured for export - providing completely renewable energy to importing countries via existing LNG export, transport and import infrastructure.

Curiously, coal is presently being converted to synthetic natural gas in the most environmentally 'unfriendly' option available - burning a portion of the coal in air to create carbon monoxide and hydrogen that is reacted in a separate step to create methane. This technology has been criticised for its high level of carbon dioxide emissions and water usage.

Coal could be converted to methane by reacting it with hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water with electricity from solar PV systems and wind turbines. It can also be converted to methane in high temperature superheated water reactors. The thermal energy to do this can be from concentrated solar thermal energy, or from reaction with hydrogen created by the electrolysis of water.

This is most suitable for low-grade lignite such as that found in Yallourn Valley in Australia that consists of 50 percent or more water. With this process it can be converted to high-value synthetic natural gas, avoiding the need for coal seam gas.

Its use can be gradually phased-out as renewable energy generating capacity increases to the stage where it can completely replace it.

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Renewable natural gas can turns organic waste into usable fuel. An ideal use? Large trucks. #sustainability https://t.co/blouS4fZZ5 pic.twitter.com/jMSne5nRk8

— UPS Public Affairs (@UPSPolicy) April 17, 2017

Production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) by hydrothermal gasification of wet biomass https://t.co/qJyOyZw9rr

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) February 26, 2017

Making renewable natural gas from wet biomass, no #CSG -
1/ https://t.co/cbAnvLLgQi
2/ https://t.co/bA1a1XcUY1
3/ https://t.co/Xyy79DHFEo

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) April 3, 2017

Energy security

Energy security and a reasonable cost for energy can be achieved with a number of design options.

One option for a group of homes with solar PV systems is:

• Share an energy storage system that begins each day holding enough energy to make up for any solar PV electricity shortfall.
• During the day use solar PV electricity for each household, only drawing from the energy storage system when demand exceeds the solar PV output.
• At night use a grid-based electricity generator for each household. "Top up" the energy storage system at night where it has supplied power during the day. 
• A number of projects and initiatives are exploring grid-based electricity generator business models. The University of Technology Sydney for instance:
  • "Building a level playing field for local electricity generation"
  • "Facilitating Local Network Charges and Local Electricity Trading"

Having a store of energy to use when you need it provides #energysecurity. Large scale #energystorage using a #vanadium flow battery. pic.twitter.com/DnKijJCLyd

— VSUN Energy (@vsunptyltd) December 22, 2016

The energy storage system provides energy security by supplying electricity whenever solar PV output is reduced by cloud cover.

It also supplies extra capacity for exceptional demand periods with both the energy storage system and the solar PV systems delivering electricity.

CoverTel Power is proud to announce
the first Imergy Vanadium Flow Power system has landed in Melbourne Australia

This is an alternative to gold-plating the electricity grid ("poles-and-wires") to provide extra capacity that is hardly ever needed. It is also an alternative to building power stations that sit idle for all but rare occasions when they are used to satisfy exceptional demand.

The electricity grid and grid-based electricity generators are used more efficiently because they service a consistent overnight demand. There is no need for costly "gold-plating" and expensive reserve capacity. Because of this electricity prices are reduced.

Electric vehicles can also be most conveniently recharged at night. This too improves energy security by eliminating dependence on imported transport fuels.

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Some innovations need system integrators and coordination

Much innovation occurs by incremental improvements in technology. Jet engines gradually replaced piston engines in the aircraft industry. Cathode ray tube television sets have been replaced by flat screen televisions.

Other innovations are not so easily made by incremental adoption. A vehicle manufacture developing the first model able to be fueled by unleaded petrol would have difficulty finding a customer if no petrol station sold unleaded petrol. A petrol station proprietor would be unlikely to stock unleaded petrol when no customers drove vehicles needing unleaded petrol and no oil refinery made unleaded petrol....

Innovations are often disruptive and the benefits come with adverse effects ...

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Fed Govt warns electric cars will hit its bottom line by driving fall in fuel excise revenue https://t.co/KwMJzSGDGO pic.twitter.com/vPyXC1N3Ti

— ABC Current Affairs (@amworldtodaypm) August 16, 2016

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Many innovations only work when they are part of a collection of co-ordinated changes that are adopted across a number of industry participants.

The components needed to make some innovations work may exist in other fields. Industry participants and product developers can benefit from the skills of  system integrators to locate components for a viable design made up from a collection of products that will work well together.

An example of a wandering albatross GPS track

The technology capabilities of The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, "Tracking seabirds to inform conservation of the marine environment" suggests a way to overcome the quite real concern of the Federal Government that electric cars will hit its bottom line by driving a fall in fuel excise revenue.

Advances in the miniaturisation and mass-production of low-cost, lightweight, high-precision GPS tags, enables tracking the detailed movements of large numbers of seabirds, including some of the smaller species.

"The Turnbull Government is preparing to drive a new debate over how roads are funded in Australia, with the revenue collected from fuel excise expected to shrink in coming years. Right now motorists pay almost 40 cents a litre in tax, delivering close to a $11 billion dollars a year to the Treasury." (@ABCNews, 16 August 2016)

The existing fuel excise that funds roads is raised in proportion to the amount of fuel motorists buy. Motorists who drive only during off-peak times on regional roads pay at the same rate as motorists driving on expressways in cities during peak periods. A replacement technology that can measure the time, distance and location of trips may be sold on the basis that it is more equitable than the existing fuel levy that contributes to road funding.

Mass production of batteries for electric vehicles will drive a significant reduction in their manufacturing cost.

There is an opportunity to combine this predictable reduction in the cost of lithium-ion battery energy storage with the continuing decline in the price of solar photovoltaic (solar PV) systems.

The two technologies don't immediately work well together when people typically drive to work early in the morning and return home late in the day. Any solar energy generated at their home during the day cannot be conveniently used to recharge their electric vehicle.

An option to improve the overall performance and cost-effectiveness of these technologies has been developed ....

This technology makes an electric vehicle's battery pack an interchangeable unit: "6 Reasons Tesla's Battery Swapping Could Take It To a Better Place."

Having an electric vehicle battery at home being recharged during the day allows energy in the battery to be partly discharged at times when spikes in the energy demand exceeds the output of the solar PV system, such as an air-conditioning turning on for 20 - 30 minutes late in the afternoon to cool the home before the residents begin returning from school and work. 

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Another approach

Vanadium flow batteries can be charged and discharged almost indefinitely with little loss in capacity. They weigh more than lithium-ion batteries holding the same amount of energy so they are more suited for fixed energy storage than for powering vehicles.

Instead of using an interchangeable lithium-ion pack to store solar energy during the day and swapping it with a discharged lithium-ion battery pack in a car, a vanadium flow battery could be charged with solar energy during the day and the stored energy could recharge a car's lithium-ion battery pack overnight.

Factor in replacement costs for batteries. #vanadium #energystorage has a 20+ year life span without degradation. pic.twitter.com/N91baBLtjZ

— VSUN Pty Ltd (@vsunptyltd) August 26, 2016

Optimising the price-performance ratio of solar thermal power stations

Optimising the price-performance ratio of concentrated solar thermal power stations is an interesting mathematics puzzle.

Fossil fuel power stations have traditionally been designed without the benefit of advanced compressor technology that achieves close to isothermal compression. Without this technology all designs necessarily aim to maximise the temperature at which fossil fuels are burned.

Optimising the price-performance of concentrated solar thermal power stations has two significant differences:

1. New compressor technology allows optimisation without the need for extremely high temperatures and substantial waste heat being discharged as a result.
2. Solar thermal energy able to be used in a solar thermal tower reduces as the temperature increases. At the maximum attainable temperature known as the "stall temperature" energy arriving in the collector is being re-radiated into space at the same rate as it arrives. No energy is available to be converted to electricity.

As a result of the last point above, an increase in efficiency that relies on a higher temperature will eventually result in less electricity being produced because less solar energy is being converted - even though the efficiency of conversion is greater. For instance 50 percent of 100 kilojoules is more than 75 percent of 60 kilojoules in the situation where 40 kilojoules are lost due to a higher temperature in the solar receiver.


This video describes the difference between steam turbine power plants and gas turbine power plants. Concentrated solar thermal power plants use the same technology without using fossil fuels as the source of thermal energy.

Steam power plants and compressed air turbines can only convert about 35% of the energy collected into electricity:

• On the back end of the steam turbine the steam must be condensed back into water.  During this condensation process, heat is “rejected” up cooling towers and into the atmosphere, resulting in a loss of 30% to 40% of the original heat energy supplied to the system. More energy is then used in pumping the condensed water back into the boiler at very high pressure.
  
  
• Compressed air turbines discard a large amount of energy collected in the exhaust flow out of turbine. More energy is used by the axial flow compressor that compresses air on input to the turbine. 

"Solutions" focus on methods to make use of the heat energy wasted by these engines. One often-used approach is to build an entire steam power station behind a compressed air turbine generator! This "solution" is known as a combined-cycle gas turbine or "CCGT" power plant.

For reasons that are not clear solutions that simply avoid the waste of thermal energy in the first place are overlooked.

Adding a high-efficiency compressor to the front of a conventional axial-flow air compressor and turbine generator allows the exhaust to cool to ambient temperature with no heat energy wasted.

Hicor’s technology achieves a more efficient compression process by minimizing the temperature rise

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Compression Basics

The Hicor technology achieves a more efficient compression process by minimizing the temperature rise associated with compression, improving efficiencies over conventional compressors by 30% or more.

At its most basic, compression is a mechanism by which work is put into a fluid and results in an increase in pressure. Heat is also generated as a by-product of compression, which serves to make the process less efficient by turning some of the input work into heat instead of pressure. As the gas being compressed heats up further and further, the compression process gets less and less efficient.

Hicor’s technology achieves a more efficient compression process by minimizing the temperature rise associated with compression, improving efficiencies over conventional compressors by 30% or more.

Hicor’s proprietary compression technology provides a myriad of additional benefits as well, including fewer moving parts, less vibration and noise, and a variable pressure ratio. Finally, Hicor’s near-isothermal compression technology allows for compression ratios of 30 to 1 or higher, reducing system level complexity and resulting in lower capital and operating costs.

Positive Displacement Compression

The compression process can be displayed graphically, as in the pressure-volume (PV) plot shown below. The curves in a PV plot show how the pressure increases as volume decreases. For different compression processes, the curves will vary. The work of compression can be visualized as the area under the curve corresponding to a given compression curve.

All compression processes fall between two extremes: adiabatic, where no heat is exchanged with the outside environment and the energy put into the system remains internal; and isothermal, where energy is removed from the system in the form of heat and the temperature of the gas remains constant.

In practice, all compression processes fall somewhere between adiabatic and isothermal and are known as polytropic processes. To achieve a more highly efficient compression process, it is ideal to reduce the polytropic constant to as close to the isothermal process as possible, where the polytropic constant is 1.

The Hicor proprietary compressor design is capable of achieving polytropic constants as low as 1.06, improving efficiencies over conventional, near-adiabatic compressors by as much as forty percent.

Battery storage of renewable energy

You can increase the financial return from an investment in a lithium ion battery pack by your choice of where to use the energy it stores.

For instance if the retail price of electricity is 20 cents per kilowatt-hour then using stored solar energy to replace the purchase of electricity you use in your home will save you 20 cents for each kilowatt-hour your battery pack delivers.

Tesla’s new “Powerwall” home battery will cost $3,500 for 10kWh units

If you chose to pay for the lithium ion battery pack to be built into an electric vehicle then the financial return may be far greater:

• Suppose a small electric vehicle can be fully charged in 7 hours at the rate of 2.4 kilowatts per hour and travel about 150 kilometres on that charge.
• The total amount of energy stored is 7 hours times 2.4 kilowatts which is 16.8 kilowatt-hours for 150 kilometres, or 11.2 kilowatt-hours for each 100 kilometres.
• Suppose a similar small petrol car would use 10 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres costing about $1 per litre. At this price of petrol the fuel cost is 10 litres times $1 per 100 kilometres which is $10.
• Choosing to put your lithium ion battery pack investment in a small car could save you $10 for each 11.2 kilowatt-hours of energy stored in it. 

This is a saving of $0.89 per kilowatt-hour which is more than 4 times the saving of $0.20 per kilowatt-hour if you use the lithium ion battery pack to replace electricity you use in your home.

Power stations, Engines, Air Conditioners Fuels Cells, Batteries and more

Innovative design can be spurred by scientific understanding of energy storage and transformation.

This diagram represents current scientific understanding of how energy may be stored and transformed.

A power station can theoretically convert 10,000 joules of thermal energy at 1200 degrees Kelvin into 7,500 joules of electrical energy and 2,500 joules of thermal energy at 300 degrees Kelvin.

It is also theoretically possible to decompose some chemical compound into its constituent elements with 10,000 joules of thermal energy at 1200 degrees Kelvin and produce 7,500 joules of electrical energy and 2,500 joules of thermal energy at 300 degrees Kelvin in a fuel cell that recombines those elements into the original chemical compound.

If it is cheaper and more reliable to construct a machine that operates at a temperature of just 900 degrees Kelvin instead of 1200 degrees Kelvin, then this machine could theoretically decompose the chemical compound into its constituent elements with 2,500 joules of electrical energy and 7,500 joules of thermal energy at 900 degrees Kelvin.

It is not necessary to view batteries as the only type of device that can store electrical energy:

At some later time the decomposed elements could be used to produce 7,500 joules of electrical energy and 2,500 joules of thermal energy at 300 degrees Kelvin in a fuel cell that recombines those elements into the original chemical compound.

The graph above is a representation of scientific knowledge from which these observations can be made.

Mathematics permits this simple geometric model to be created from three separate scientific models:

• Carnot's equation for efficiency of heat engines.
• Nernst's equation for electrochemical reactions.
• Gibbs-Helmholtz's equation for chemical reactions.

Energy storage and storing a decrease in entropy

1/ Power an air compressor with 13.38 kWh of electric energy to produce heating for a household's daily hot water consumption. The electric energy is converted to heat energy at about 60°C to produce 270 litres of hot water at 55°C and compressed air cooled to 25°C and 8 atmospheres.
See the spreadsheet below for calculations of thermal energy needed to supply 270 litres of hot water per day for a household or business.

2/ The compressed air produced at 25°C and 8 atmospheres (absolute) pressure may be used for driving compressed-air tools.
See the spreadsheet "AirCompressor" for the calculation of the energy used by the compressor and the volume of air it compresses.

3/ The compressed air instead may be used in a solar-air turbine to deliver 24.55 kWh at 100% thermal efficiency by compressing it adiabatically to 32 atmospheres before heating it further with an external thermal energy source at constant pressure then expanding it adiabatically before finally outputting it at 25°C and 1 atmosphere pressure.
See the spreadsheet "AirHeatEngine" for the calculation of the conversion of heat energy to 24.55 kWh electrical energy at 100% conversion efficiency with the compressed air that was produced while providing a household or businesses daily hot water requirements.

Note that while the conversion of thermal energy to electrical energy can achieve an efficiency of 100%, the total efficiency takes into account the 13.38 kWh consumed to produce the compressed air. The overall efficiency for this model is (24.55 - 13.38) / 24.55 = 45.5%.

spreadsheets

Cutting Edge 24/7 Solar Technology

Arizona State University Research Partnership With Cutting Edge 24/7 Solar Technology

Arizona State University and AORA Solar NA announce a collaboration that will begin the development of a hybrid concentrated solar system on the Tempe campus that employs a Solar Tulip to concentrate the sun's energy, turning it into electricity.

Tempe, AZ - March 13, 2014

Solar generated electricity, which can suffer from intermittency issues and related impacts on the grid, is about to blossom at Arizona State University. Work will now begin on the development of a hybrid concentrated solar system, following a contract signing with ASU and AORA to provide research expertise in order to enhance the efficiency of this unique technology.

AORA Solar NA, has agreed to install the first ever Solar Tulip hybrid generating facility in the United States on university land, and ASU faculty, research staff, and students will work hand in hand with AORA to enhance the system. This project includes the installation of a hybrid concentrated solar power plant that employs a Solar Tulip to concentrate the sun’s energy, turning it into electricity. The system produces power 24/7, moving seamlessly from solar to natural gas or biogas and is also promising because it uses little to no water while producing a high quality thermal output in addition to power.

AORA Solar NA, a U.S. company, will work with a multi-disciplinary ASU team to research options to increase efficiency, improve reliability, utilize the exhaust heat and decrease the cost of this Israeli developed technology. AORA will construct the demonstration power plant, which includes a tower (approximately 100 feet high) appropriately called the Solar Tulip, on undeveloped land near the Karsten Golf Course in Tempe. The technology includes a collection of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays to heat compressed air to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and drive a gas turbine. The rated output of the Tulip system is 100 kilowatts of electricity and an additional 170 kilowatts of thermal energy, about enough energy to power between 60-80 homes.

At night, or when overcast, the Tulip can use a wide range of fuels to heat the air and is thereby able to produce power and heat round the clock. The system is modular in design, allowing for multiple Tulips to work together, enabling the technology to match growing electric demand requirements. The relatively small footprint makes this system a potentially perfect complement to housing developments, or industrial parks, and offers an option to enhance grid stability in the presence of transient renewable generation.

“ASU is a natural partner for us, not only because of its sunny location, but because of the university’s dedication to innovation and sustainability,” said Zev Rosenzweig, CEO of AORA Solar. “We are excited to make our debut here in the United States with this innovative technology where we will continue to grow and develop the Tulip into a system that cities and industries around the world use to generate continuous energy with renewable resources. ASU’s breadth of research capability will undoubtedly allow us to increase output, and reduce overall costs which will bring us to commercial viability. Our confidence in this project is enhanced with the participation of Project Director, Ellen Stechel, who has spearheaded the concept from the beginning, along with her colleagues Gary Dirks, William Brandt and the ASU LightWorks team.”    

AORA Solar is currently operating two additional research facilities, one located in a solar research park in Almeria, Spain, and the original unit in Israel. These systems can be controlled remotely via computer, a unique capability that provides innovative options for possibilities in the U.S. and indeed around the world, including developing countries.

The ASU/AORA collaborative relationship will not only bring ASU closer to its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2025, but it will also benefit students and researchers across multiple fields of study.

“This is another instance in which ASU has brought in cutting edge technology that its students can learn from and help perfect,” said Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan, senior vice president of Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development at ASU. “With this collaboration, the university has established a commitment to integrate students, faculty, and staff into research on the Solar Tulip design to bring 24-hour solar/renewable technology to commercialization.”

“The AORA/ASU collaboration provides a multitude of possibilities looking forward,” said Gary Dirks, director of ASU LightWorks. “It is a perfect example of industry and academia coming together and leveraging their unique strengths to create collaborative projects that propel new and viable technology into our energy future. The Solar Tulip has enormous potential both at ASU and beyond.”

AORA Solar has contracted with GreenFuel Technologies, a Phoenix-based General Contractor specializing in environmental energy projects to construct the research plant at the ASU campus. Groundbreaking is expected to occur in April, with the anticipated operation date to be sometime in the late September/early October time frame. AORA Solar and ASU look forward to welcoming university peers along with the public to a ribbon-cutting event at the Tulip’s completion.

“We are pleased to host the Solar Tulip at the ASU Tempe campus,” said John Riley, sustainability operations officer at ASU. “It is a visually iconic piece of technology, helping to illustrate the way ASU is a destination place for state-of-the-art research and facilities.”

This collaboration was advanced by Arizona State University LightWorks, a research initiative that unites resources and researchers across ASU to confront global energy challenges. The LightWorks team provided the vision of required research, identified the multiple research windows in which AORA will participate and is intimately involved in moving the project from concept to fruition. With a proven track record of swiftly and strategically partnering with a diverse set of institutions, LightWorks continues to help overcome challenges in the fields of solar power, sustainable fuels, and energy policy. To learn more about ASU LightWorks, visit asulightworks.com.

Left to right: Gary Dirks, director of ASU LightWorks, Zev Rosenzweig, CEO of AORA Solar and John Riley, associate vice president of university business services and sustainability operations officer.

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About AORA
AORA, a renewable energy pioneer, is a leading developer of applied ultra-high temperature concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. AORA’s modular solar power generation solutions are comprised of very small modular units (100kWe / 170kW heat) that can be linked together into centrally controlled power plants, customized to client demand. When the amount of sunlight is not sufficient, the system can operate on almost any alternative fuel source, thereby guaranteeing an uninterrupted power supply, 24hr/day. To learn more about AORA Solar, please visit http://aora-solar.com/.