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January 11th, 2008 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Cleaning Barrel

2000 Oil Barrels Eliminated by Solar Power

The technology began on these tropical islands, and now it has come home to roost, but in a nice way.

On Dec. 10, the Big Island will power up a 4-acre solar farm based on Sopogy technology, which was spun off as Keahole Solar Power LLC to develop the project.

Located on Honolulu, Sopogy’s 500-kilowatt concentrating solar array, which is more efficient than solar photovoltaic systems, will deliver enough electricity to the Big Island’s power grid to serve 250 homes, according to state energy agency estimates.

This amount will help prevent 808 metric tons of carbon dioxide from oil-burning power plants (for which Hawaii is justly infamous), which is the same as preserving almost 8 acres of forest, planting 20,176 trees, or eliminating 154 cars from the road. In 2007, Hawaii’s generation mix stood at 68.4-percent oil, and 12.5 percent coal, with only 4.5-percent delivered from renewable resources like solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.

Sopogy’s 4-acre solar farm, comprised of 1,000 collectors about 12 feet long and five feet wide, will also eliminate the need to buy 2,000 barrels of oil, a development which state energy administrator Ted Peck called “exciting”.

The technology itself relies on troughs, or half-barrel-shaped solar collectors, which catch, reflect and concentrate the sun’s energy on a central collection bar. The system can head liquids up to 400 degrees (Fahrenheit), and the heat from the liquid used to produce steam to operate a turbine.

The array is being placed alongside Hawaii’s Natural Energy Laboratory (south of Kona International Airport), but a 44,572-square-foot pilot project in July, built by Sopogy and Helio Dynamics (a concentrating solar manufacturer), under the auspices of Southern California Gas (a division of Sempra Energy), proved the technology viable and compared Sopogy’s concentrating solar to larger concentrating trough arrays like Andasol 1 as the “PC size in concentrating solar generation” (as opposed to mainframes).

Sopogy’s collector, originally designed as the SopoFlare™ and destined for the commercial/industrial rooftop market as a substitute for solar thermal (solar hot water heating) or photovoltaic technologies, was developed in conjunction with an integrated roof rack mounting system.

All Sopogy’s offerings are based on its MicroCSP™ technology, which can be used in place of, or hybridized with, power generation systems, chiller (or AC) systems, process heat recovery devices, and even in desalination.

Originally founded in 2002 by Hawaiian-based Energy Industries (an energy product developer) as an energy concepts incubator at the Energy Laboratories site, Sopogy has gone on to become an innovator, offering a product that costs less to manufacture than solar photovoltaic, with about twice the efficiency. And, while not as efficient as utility-scale solar thermal collections systems, is less costly, provides for energy storage at night and on cloudy days, and offers the hope that someday the technology will be available in residential roof-sized units.

Sopogy is looking ahead to a 50-megawatt project in Spain, and its sister entity, Keahole, is hoping to develop 30 megawatts of concentrating solar thermal throughout the Islands in the next six years.

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Cooler Planet is a leading solar resource for connecting consumers and commercial entities with local solar Installers. Cooler Planet’s solar panel resources and solar energy page contains articles and tools to help with your solar project.

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