Since diving into the deep end when it comes to energy issues, almost every day sees new fascinating concepts, approaches, and technologies. Fascinating ... exciting ... even hope inspiring at times. And, as well, as the passion builds, so many of these are truly Energy COOL.
One of the exciting things nowadays is that there are so many exciting developments in the energy arena, many of them suggesting the promise of a breakthrough that could help change the world to something better. Sweden's Global Sun Engineeringis pursuing just such an opportunity. Their Matarenki Light is a tracking system, with mirrors concentrating the sun's power on photovoltaiic cells. One of the challenges with CPV (concentrated photovoltaiics) is the heating of the cells. Problems can create opportunities. The cooling system is, in essence, a solar hot water system. Thus, the Matarenki Light will provide both electricity and hot water.
The Matarenki Light is intriguing for a number of reasons, beyond the combined electricity / hot water production system. The claimed design feature is also ease of installation, with a six-inch (150 mm) tube to be anchored to the ground or attached to a structure (house). (To be honest, the 290 kilos (638 lbs) seems a bit of a heavy load to get onto a suburban roof.) In essence, when ready for shipping, the entire system looks to be shipped in a few pieces, put together by a few people in just an hour or so to then be hooked to electrical lines and water pipes.
The Matarenki Light 5.3 (currently testing system) is interesting but unlikely more than an auxiliary system for most households. Global Sun Engineering is offering up five theoretical annual electricity and heat (hot water) production levels: Santa Barbara, California; Graz, Austria; Brisbane, Australia; Napoli, Italy; and Sevilla, Spain.
Santa Barbara is the most productive location. In a Santa Barbara location, they claim that the Matarenki Light 5.3 would provide 1014 kWh of electricity per year and 7193 kWh of heat.
Thus, at a peak production location, the Matarenki Light 5.3 would, annually, provide just a little more than the 920 kWh average monthly American household electricity use (2006). (To provide a different way of considering this, the 1014 kWh is about 115 watts 24/7 while the average US household uses more like 1200 watts 24/7.)
When it comes to hot water, the Matarenki Light 5.3 might actually significantly outperform an average home's requirements of roughly 3500 kWh (thank you NRGGUY). (Though, there are published items that the annual average US household demand for hot water is 5900 kWh per year.) Thus, perhaps, we might see a use for a Matarenki at some form of facility that has a higher hot water demand than a single family home, perhaps an apartment building or providing solar hot water for a few townhouses.
Thus, writ large, the Matarenki seems to offer the potential for meeting (or, more likely, beating) the typical household solar hot water heating system while producing perhaps ten percent of the household electrical demand.
The question will be price. Global Sun Engineering claims that "our solution deliver electricity and heat at half the cost for the end customer". That suggests a price point. If they can install their system for, for example, the price of existing solar thermal systems, the electricity production becomes icing on the cake and they could have a winning solution.
But, purchase price is only part of the equation. What is the life-cycle/total ownership cost? For example, what is the warranty on all the moving parts and complexity of the tracking system? How many years will the system work.
Thus, there are some real questions to have answers to before seizing on this as a winning solution.
Guess it is time to wait for the price sheets and warranty plan to come out.