The "Hypercar" of solar power

As I have spent my entire profesional career in designing and optimizing several different solar collectors for our own projects and for other companies, and on a global radius of adaptations to different climates and solar wheather patterns etc. I discovered hundreds of new design details affecting efficiency and power output, and we eventually started to design manufacture and certify performance levels above whats typical solar photovoltaic systems. We developed a range of hybrid solar panels that makes both electric power, and heat (hot water, steam or hot nitrogen gas and others) and with total power levels far above what possible with traditional solar cells. We designed, tested and certified many different solar panels and collectors that was in the range 65-85% efficiency on a routine basis.  

 

When compare this with traditional PV panels that is the most commonplace solar technology today, we notice a efficiency range of 21-24% in PV panels. And even if we account for the theoretical Shockley-Queisser (S-Q) limit that is the maximum theoretical efficiency for a single-junction solar cell to convert sunlight into electricity, that is calculated to be approximately 33.7% under standard test conditions (like the AM1.5 solar spectrum) in a single junction cell etc. And I invented new novel materials to improve PV panels as encapsulations materials that withstand high temperatures with higher transmittance and no yellowing or ageing, electrical interconnections, electronics, cell coatings, booster reflector designs to enhance incoming light power, non metal back reflector surfaces, antireflection coatings in front cover glasses, cooling functions to reduce the heat coefficient power reduction and many other details. But even at the highest theoretical efficiency of PV panels, we cant make solar fuels with more than 5-6% net efficiency in the solar field (per hectare) at best. Its is to low output with PV panels to make economic sense in power to x plants if we compare to a industrial thermal processes collector in the operation. 

 

Meaning that all the different solar panels that I have designed or worked on optimization has been far above the average level of efficiency in PV panels, and now when I was designing the solar fuels (power to x) technology in Sunthetics, it was soon evident that I couldnt reach a high production rate, or output per hectare of land using PV panels. We had to use more novel solutions and processes in the carbon dioxide to solar fuel conversion that are actually using heat or steam rather than electric power. And with this realisation I designed the ”Tertiary solar collector” using a CSP (concentrating solar power) style concentrator optics in two distinct versions, one more traditional (yet it was created in 2010 and patented as a novel design in 2014-2019). And I also designed a collector that has the addition of a ”Thermal diode” function (also patent pending design) that eliminates the need for using advanced and expensive vacuum tube recievers, se figure 2. 

 

The new solar collector works by heating ultrapure water from 75°C to 500°C at 250bar pressure, meaning that we avoid two phase boiling using supercritical state through the whole solar collector string. This single phase operation eliminates all problems that was encountered in CSP technology earlier in direct steam generation (DSG). I worked with DSG technology since early 2000’s and realized that we needed to do something else, see me at a DSG plant in Andalusia in figure 1 as an example. 

 

Figure 1.              Stefan Larsson-Mastonstråle at a solar field in Andalusia, Spain in front of a compact fresnel direct steam generation plant in the early 2000’s. We made technology progress reporting and participated in several CSP development projects at the time. 

 

 

By replacing the very expensive vacuum tube reciever with a thermal diode we can reach similar high temperature efficiencies as the most advanced thermal technologies at a very low cost, and we have almost totally removed all the high temperature heat losses. This has been a difficult barrier to low cost CSP solar collectors. The reflectors are low cost materials and with a novel design that minimizes total mass in tons/hectare and with the thermal diode, and using ultrapure water as working media in the solar collectors eliminate the need for high cost heat carrier liquids, and we can reach a specific solar field cost that is low also copmared to low cost PV panels. 

 

This new and very novel design has been tested at the MREL (maston renewable energy lab) in collaboration with universities and certification instritutes, and may be the best combination of low cost and high efficiency solar, and much more suitable for producing solar fuels and power to x industry. 

 

Figure 2.              The Sunthetics CSP collector for production of supercritical steam at 500°C and 250bar presure. 

 

The novel solar collector produces suprecritical steam at 500°C and 250bar pressure, where the solar fuel processes happens at improved chemical conditions. At managing water at supercritical state we can pressurise the system at very low parasitic losses, and we may conduct electrolysis in a different route compared to other methods, we use both the steam and electric power combined to make hydrogen, and we can allow all subsequent steps to be pressure reduction related with near zero need for internal cooling. And we can use a traditional steam expander to make electric power with a thermal heat storage, and use residual heat to capture carbon form the air, and to enable continous production of the solar fuel system. Meaning that this system design will make it possible to reach very high solar field efficiencies inlcuding the whole solar fuel process. 

 

 

Parameter	Value (typical)	Comment
Reflector area per ha	4,900 m²	49% ground cover
Thermal effect	4.0–5.1 MW_th	depending on the DNI
Electrical power (CHP2X)	1.3–1.5 MW_el	at 30-35% electrical efficiency
Methanol production	~1.3–1.5 t/d	if SCWE reaction is used
Total solar field efficiency	~75%	incl. thermal diode

 

 

The supercritical solar collector with its 83C of concentration factor has a dependency on solar irradiance power level DNI (direct normal irradiation) that follows the diagram in figure 3 below from 700W/m2 up to 980W/m2. 

 

Figure 3.              The Sunthetics CSP collector for production of supercritical steam at 500°C and 250bar presure. 

 

 

The impact of using a novel CSP technology instead of PV is substancial and reduce land area use (and costs) to large extent, se figure 4. This fact also enable utilisation of solar energy on remote areas far away from power grids, opening up a wider range of possible sites for production of solar fuels. 

 

 

 

Figure 4.              The Sunthetics CSP collector reduce land area use in solar fields of multi MW sizing. 

 

If we include the total costs (CAPEX) in the calculations its also possible to notice that the ”Hypercar” of solar is used in solar fuels production, we achieve a much higher yiled at a lower cost, meaning that the return on investment is also higher. And the PV option is not competitive in this application in comparison, as we notice that it would be possible even is the PV panels was given to the project for free, or if they had 100% efficiency. This is a fact that becomes visible when we acount for all the nessesary processes that must happen in the solar field i fits to enable production of solar fuels, all on site, that is also a prerequistite for low cost production, or to make a ”solar oil well”.  

(*Note: This is an opinion and description of work conducted and not intended to be investment advice. Many of the numbers and facts are estimations of what may be possible to achieve, and not a description of future events or results etc. Its purpose is to educate about the world of tokenized real world assets, that are emerging side by side with other blockchain based currencies and “coins” that may not be in any way related to industrial production facilities and energy producing power plants etc.)