electro solar generator

[Stef]

hi everyone,

First of all I would like to congratulate Dan and Denise for their great videos. These are much informative and fun to watch.

I have this project to build an electro solar generator for which I would appreciate your input:
There are some GPS videos where it shows stirling or steams engines powered by the sun to produce electricity.
What I would like to do is to build a machine that produces electricity and stores extra energy when it's sunny and then delivers the energy when it's dark for a continuous production of electricity. Like an engine generator with the sole fuel being the sun.
Ideally, I would prefer not to use batteries for energy storage as we go back into a 'dirty' technology.
In attachment, a sketch of the machine with pressure tanks as storage but I really don't know how to go about this or if it is feasible.

I would appreciate any brain-storming ideas, even the ones that don't seem realistic.

Stef.

[qsmxpilot]

My initial guess is that you would want something dense inside the tanks to absorb the heat.
It would be nice if the flow aided itself somehow. Maybe the heat of the sun would create a vacuum to draw the fluid up to the oven on its own.
Would changing the orientation of the two tanks help with that?
What if one was high and the other low? I guess that would present problems of its own.

While the sun is up, a set of solar cells could drive the motor. So you could push the water from the HP tank up through the oven into a large LP tank at a higher location, hopefully well insulated. Then gravity would allow you to use the heat from a day's warming and pumping, holding residual heat until it was used.

[Leon]

My thoughts, based on past eperience with very powerful steam turbines upto 30,000 Hp

I think what you need to do is feed the high pressure side straight to your stean turbine, you cant really store steam as it condenses back to liquid - unfortunately, unless you keep it very hot.

Then you need to condense it back into liquid before returning it to the steam generator, this may sound daft but you could try and develop a gravity feed, the hot steam would have no problem travelling upwards to your steam engine, once exhausted return to a cold tank to condense to water, before being re-heated. The condenser may be positioned to act as a header to the steam generator with a means of re-filling as it emptied due to losses.

As for storing the energy produced, without batteries im unsure, how about using the steam turbine to drive an air compressor and store air in a large HP bottle ie divers air cylinder or similar? it may not be practical or most efficient but would be another way to store power without batteries.

well, it makes some sense to me!

[bobE]

One approach might be to combine technologies. For example steam generated might be used to power a modified air compressor turning it into a steam engine. That engine could power a generator which produces electricity that could split water into H2 and O2. Capturing the hydrogen would provide a means of storing the power. While hydrogen is dangerous it's really not more so than other hydrocarbon gases but it could be used to boil water when the sun doesn't shine. Hydrogen doesn't produce any risk of carbon monoxide when burned and doesn't collect in low places if it leaks. Bloom Energy has just come out with what they call an "energy server" which is an adaption of a hydrogen fuel cell. It is twice as efficient at producing electricity from fuel sources such as natural gas or bio-organic sources as coal-fired plants with electricity being sent over transmission lines. The problem is the smallest unit they are making is 100 KW; far beyond the needs of a residence. Still the technology is beginning to emerge. One nice thing about a fuel cell is it works in both directions. You can make electricity by using a fuel and you can also make fuel (hydrogen) by using electricity. Several large interests are serving as beta testers of this concept including ebay, Wall Mart, Google and Cox Cable. Colin Powel is on their Board of Directors so I consider this a significant advancement towards green energy.

[Jamesblvd]

Part of the idea is to keep the water on the hotter side. One way (even it takes a little power that you produce) is to put heating elements on the low side. Something like electric water heater ect. If you keep the water just below boiling temp, it would steam faster and be more faster process.

[infotechproximity9]

Then you need to condense it back into liquid before returning it to the steam generator, this may sound daft but you could try and develop a gravity feed, the hot steam would have no problem travelling upwards to your steam engine, once exhausted return to a cold tank to condense to water, before being re-heated. The condenser may be positioned to act as a header to the steam generator with a means of re-filling as it emptied due to losses.

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