Solar Power Minus the Light

An anonymous reader writes "Popular Science is running a story about a small company trying to take advantage of all the global warming hype. Matteran Energy uses 'thermal-collection technology to heat a synthetic fluid with a very low boiling point (around 58F), creating enough steam to drive a specially designed turbine. And although a fluid-circuit system converting heat into electricity is nothing new, Matterans innovative solution increases the systems efficiency to a point where small-scale applications make economic sense.' Notably, this comes during a record breaking heat wave here in the US. So has the day finally arrived where I can run my AC off of all that heat outdoors?"

Only solves 50% of the problem

[chriss (26574)]

Hm, looks simply like a small sterling engine or mini gas turbine used to drive an AC. They managed to make it cheap so it will be applicable in small installations, but both the sterling engine and the gas turbine (using a fluid in a closed circuit) require a temperature difference, so the machine would not be driven by heat alone. You'd have to cool down the steam after it had passed the generator to make it condensate to a fluid again and pump it back into the thermal collectors. The article does not mention how this should be done or where the energy for this should come from.

Power stations using closed fluid circuits (e.g. nuclear plants) use a secondary circuit to cool the first one after the steam passed the turbine. They are usually located near rivers for this. Larger installations for sterling engines can store heat during the day in a water tank and use the difference in temperature between the water and the surrounding cooler air during the night to drive a sterling engine. This obviously works best in areas where the difference in temperature between day and night is significant, i.e. deserts. I don't think it to be realistic to turn 1/4 of your apartment into a heat/cold storage just to drive the AC.

So in the end they made it cheaper, but inefficient (5%) even compared to solar panels (20%) without offering something that could replace a conventional AC. To achieve this you'd still have to build houses in a smarter way, e.g. isolate the walls from the inside and outside and use them as thermal storage. More energy efficient construction has been done for cold regions (where houses require almost no heating during winter when isolated well, the inhabitants' body heat is sufficient) and warmer regions (traditional buildings build with clay and wind-traps and smaller windows to the sunny side). So it is possible, but do not expect too much from our current architecture.

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

Hm, looks simply like a small sterling engine or mini gas turbine used to drive an AC

Summer power consumption by aircon units determines max peak load on the power grid here in Melbourne, Australia. I think aircons should run primarily on photovoltaics because that way you get the highest power when it is needed the most.

You already have thermal energy

[dbIII (701233)]

I think aircons should run primarily on photovoltaics

Run them on heat instead - instead of having water in a rooftop solar hot water system you could have your airconditioning working fluid (eg. ammonia) getting hot then expand it through a nozzle to give you cooling. This gives you cooling with no moving parts and would use a lot less roof space than the photovolatics required to run an electric airconditioner. Electricity is not the answer to everything - it's a way to get energy from one place to another.

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[B2382F29 (742174)]

Wow, that would be expensive. Here (germany) you get 2kW (10x200W) for 9000 EUR [energetik.de]

Next time please don't pull prices out of your ass.

Deep in the earth... well not that deep.

[IBitOBear (410965)]

On the average, the underground temprature at ten feet below ground level is something like 52 degrees. (I am looking into geothermal [q.v. ground-sourced] heat pumps.) If the fluid boils at 58 degrees and you put a reasonably large ground loop you would have your temprature differential.

Toss a solar collection array on the hot side, and if the latent heat of vaporation of the mistery fluid isn't too high you should be able to get a pretty flow.

You might need to pull-start it (8-) to get the initial pressure differential, but once the system was running the cost of using some of the energy to replenish the boiler from the condensate coils should be low enough.

It mostly comes down to a matter of surface area.

In a steam/turban plant the energy to move the turban doesn't _really_ come from boiling the water, it comes from super-heating the steam. You have to move the steam through the turban energetically enough to move the machinery (which cools the steam as the pressure is relieved (etc). So it isn't so much the boiling temprature, its how much energy the media can carry _after_ boiling. A lot of volatiles do an incredibly poor job as a (relatively, in this case) super-heated fluid because of crosiveness or viscosity.

ASIDE: If I were trying to build a solar-powered air conditioner I'd use basically the same material and design as a propane-fired refridgerator and a Clever Arrangement(tm) of concentrating mirrors. The whole system is low pressure and has no moving parts. The mirros would have to track, but those moving parts wouldn't ever have interract with the volatiles.

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[bhima (46039)]

"I don't think it to be realistic to turn 1/4 of your apartment into a heat/cold storage just to drive the AC."

I see you haven't met my ex-wife.

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[Smidge204 (605297)]

Photovoltaic panels get hot because they absorb all that sunlight with only ~20% efficiency. Install the heat exchanger in close proximity to the back of the solar cells to make use of this high temperature and take advantage of the shade it provides (prevent the heat sink from being heated by the sun as well. Now your microturbine may be only 5%, but that's effectively ~25% overall for the PV-turbine system combined.

Make that a concentrating PV and your efficiency increases for both systems.

Every little bit helps.
=Smidge=

no, it solves 100%, it clearly states ambient air

[_Shorty-dammit (555739)]

it very clearly states in the animation at the company's website that ambient air temp is sufficient to cool it back down. You seem to be forgetting that those big black panels on rooftops that heat water using the sun's solar energy heat the water up to a much higher temperature than the ambient air is. What exactly would be the point of a solar water heater if it only gave you water that was the temperature of the ambient air? Anyway, so, you use that heat source to boil the liquid in the closed circuit. Don't forget, it ain't water. It's some liquid that boils at a pretty low temp. And then you use the ambient air for the heat exchanger to cool the 'steam' in the closed circuit back down, condense, and start all over again. So, from what I gather the only requirement for this to work is that the boiling point of the liquid in the closed circuit needs to be higher than the ambient air temp, and lower than the temp you can achieve from a device similar to / same as those rooftop solar water heaters. Then you should have no problem boiling or condensing that liquid, since you have the capability of getting the substance up to the boiling temp, and back down below that temp so it condenses again.

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[Jedi Alec (258881)]

this very principle is currently being put to use in a part of the Netherlands that used to be mined for coal. The water in the now abandonded mine-shafts will be used to provide heating in the winter and cooling in the summer.

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[Ohreally_factor (593551)]

I think the point he was making is that cold does not radiate, despite appearances. Radiation has a specific scientific meaning. While it might make "sence" to you, it will lead to all sorts of problems and misunderstandings should you want to, say, build something that needs to be cooled. That and you might get hauled into court for attempting to break the second law of thermodynamics. =)

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[It'sYerMam (762418)]

In other news, subtraction doesn't exist, you can only add negative numbers. Language is a convenience tool, and sometimes it's just more convenient to say that something sucks air, or radiates cold, or whatever.

Re:Only solves 50% of the problem

[rk (6314)]

'but you can't "radiate cool"'

Speak for yourself, buster!

Re:Just use solar already...

[Alioth (221270)]

I'm afraid it's a bit naive to think you can pay a lot for solar and forget about it.

The panels eventually do fail/wear out. They do last a long time - most are guaranteed to still produce 80% of their rated output when 25 years old. Cells will fail and will need replacing from time to time, and will be expensive to do. So you have to *keep* paying a lot time and time again. Also, you need somewhere to store the energy for later - home energy usage is pretty much the exact inverse of when the most solar radiation is available - where I live, you need the most electricity in the winter when it doesn't get light till 9am and is dark by 4pm - so you need to store the power during the day for your peak night time usage. The most cost effective way of doing this currently is deep cycle lead acid batteries (since you don't care about weight as it's in a building). Try pricing up enough lead acid batteries to be able to get you through a week of shitty, dark, rainy winter weather just when you need the power the most. Then realise you'll probably have to replace the whole set of batteries every 8 years (and that's optimistic). And factor in the energy cost to make and (preferably recycle) those batteries.

Solar is fine for running small things; I am considering it for running outside lighting and things like the pond pump - the whole thing only needs one 120W panel and a leisure battery, inverter and controller - and in the winter time when the solar energy isn't very abundant, I'm hardly going to need the power anyway. However, for serious microgeneration, at the current time the only halfway practical and affordable renewable energy source is wind, which is vastly cheaper - and when you need the power most, it also tends to be windy, so the energy availability actually matches domestic energy usage much better. Wind also has a much better energy payoff. The energy to make a typical wind turbine is generated by the turbine over a period of six months - it's more like 6 years for solar. Unless photo voltaic solar becomes vastly cheaper, it's simply a non-contender except for novelty value, even if you live in the desert.

Re:Just use solar already...

[Ohreally_factor (593551)]

You're talking about getting off the grid entirely, it seems. Where I live, the power company is required by law to purchase any excess electricity you put back on the grid. So, no need to store your home generated electricity with batteries.

Depending on how expensive electricity gets in the near future, solar panels to supplement what one takes off the grid might make the whole thing economically viable. Combine this with tax credits and suddenly it doesn't seem so expensive.

Not all places are equally windy. Where I live, we get a good deal more sunshine than we do wind. Wind power wouldn't work for me.

Eyesore solution

[aplusjimages (939458)]

I bet you wouldn't mind looking at the windmills if I put some porn on them. Eh. You like that. I bet you do. You so dirty.

Carnot efficiency.

[by Anonymous Coward]

58f = 14.4C or 287.6K

Now lets be generous and let our panel "superheat" the stuff up to 80C or so, and put the cold reservoir in a bucket of ice.

That gives us a heat source at 353.15K and a sink at 273.15.

Efficiency = 1.0 - cold/hot = 1.0 - (273.15/353.15) = 0.226, or about 23% efficient.

Not great.

it aint that great

[hamburger lady (218108)]

~5% efficiency.

what's wrong with a reflective dish and a stirling engine [stirlingenergy.com], anyways? much higher efficiency, materials aren't as expensive as solar panels and not nearly as bad for the environment.

Solar powered Air conditioning

[Hal_Porter (817932)]

Notably, this comes during a record breaking heat wave here in the US. So has the day finally arrived where I can run my AC off of all that heat outdoors


I guess you're making a perpetual motion joke, but the strange thing is it's not a daft as it sounds.

You could have an electrically powered heat pump to pump heat into the ground in summer, and back out again in winter.

http://www.igshpa.okstate.edu/geothermal/geotherma l.htm [okstate.edu]

Very popular here in Sweden.

If you insulate your house enough, the energy required to heat or cool it is pretty minimal, so you could generate it from solar panels, at least in the summer. And heat pumps are 3 to 4 times more than resistive electric heaters.

As wikipedia puts it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump [wikipedia.org]

When used for heating on a mild day, a typical heat pump has a COP of three to four, whereas a typical resistive electric heater has a COP of one. That is, one joule of electrical energy will cause a conventional heater to give off one joule of warmth, while under ideal conditions, one joule of electrical energy can cause a heat pump to move more than one joule of heat from a cooler place to a warmer place. Sometimes this is expressed as an efficiency value greater than 100%, as in the statement, "XYZ brand heat pumps operate at up to 400% efficiency!" This is not quite accurate, since the work does not make heat, but moves existing heat "upstream". This does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, because it takes less work to move the heat than to make the heat.

Very inefficient

[Cyberax (705495)]

This turbine can't be very efficient. Efficiency of any heat engine is limited by the Carnot cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle).

Basically, you can estimate it with this formula: e=(T2-T1)/T1 where T2 is the highest temperature of the working body and T1 is the lowest temperature. For such a small temperature drop as in this engine we'll get a very minuscule efficiency.

More flies in the ointment ...

[JumpingBull (551722)]

First, the refrigerant used in their independent calculation is R-22, a cloroflorocarbon that kills the ozone layer, implicated in crop failure due to high uv exposure.

Second, the cooling cycle uses water. Considering that potable water is in short supply, this is a problem...

Third, the thermodynamic Carnot cycle is a cap on the efficiency. Higher working temperatures do give a better efficiency, but you still have to cool them!

A different working fluid can be used. unfortunately, organic fluids tend to be flammable. Methanol might be a candidate. It is less toxic then ammonia.

Before the advent of mechanical refrigeration, some AC was done with evaporative air coolers. (for cinemas at the start of the 20th century). This might mitigate the second point.

Perhaps we are missing an important use. The humidity usually makes an environment uncomfortable. This system might find even more effectiveness driving a dehumidifier.

Finally, it might be equally effective to use a two stage boiler. A flat plate to get the fluid up to working temperature, and a solar concentrator to superheat the fluid to drive the system to a higher efficency

Not a chance it will work, or ever break-even.

[Ancient_Hacker (751168)]

Ahem, this thing won't work.

The diagram shows 10 PSI gas being condensed. Then somehow, without a pump, the 10PSI liquid "flows" into a 65 PSI boiler. No way, Jose. And no, you can't use the height of the condenser to supply "gravity" pressure. There is no free lunch.

Then there's this dang thing called the Carnot Cycle, which is impossible to violate, and dooms all these low-temp difference heat engines to extremely low efficiencies. So low, in most cases, you can't even keep up with paying the interest on the investment.

I didnt see a single numeric calculation for the loop efficiency, a really bad sign. These calculations have been basic, simple, and mandatory for upwards of a century and a third.

sure it will, it's not 10PSI

[_Shorty-dammit (555739)]

Link to animation [matteranenergy.us] Page 7 explains how it works. The liquid is heated by an external source, such as solar water heaters on a rooftop, to a temperature much higher than ambient air temp. This heat is transferred to the liquid, which boils and gets pressurized, and goes through the turbine. After which it is condensed in the condensor, which is cooled via ambient-temperature water. Then the second heat exchanger comes into play. This second one is isolated by valves at both ends. Before the condensed liquid is released into the second heat exchanger, the empty HE is cooled by the same ambient-temperature water as the condensor was. Once the HE is roughly the same temp as the condensed liquid, the top valve opens and the condensed liquid enters the HE, and then the valve closes. Now it is isolated by both valves inside the HE. And the HE is then heated by the same solar heater, bringing the liquid up to the same temp and pressure as it is in the boiler. Then the bottom valve is opened, and the liquid moves into the boiler. The valve is then closed. Then the HE is cooled again, so it can receive more condensed liquid. And on and on. The animation, and their more clear explanation, shows the entire operation rather well. Click it, I say! Click it!

Use Nature's Solar Panels

[giafly (926567)]

... by planting Trees nearby. Their shade keeps your house cool [lgc.org], all trees produce fuel for the winter, and if you choose the right varieties they deliver free organic fruit. You'll save power by not having to run your air conditioner so much [wcisa.net]. Why must some engineers make things difficult for themselves?

Re:Thermo

[Umbral Blot (737704)]

What's specifically wrong is this: to condense the steam back into a liquid you need something colder than its boiling point. Thus on a hot day you couldn't get it to condense, and thus it wouldn't work. What you really need is a a large heat sink, like the ocean or a big peice of ice, and then you could turn the tempertature differential into energy using this device (at the cost of heating up whatever cold thing you were dumping heat into).

Re:Thermo

[warewolfe (877477)]

Energy is being extracted from the fluid circuit system and being converted into electricity. Steam re-condenses into fluid because it has lost it's energy to the turbine.

No perpetual motion or violation of the laws of thermodynamics involved, just energy transfer.