Newly designed solar collection dishes at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility have a refined design.
Stirling Energy Systems (SES) and Tessera Solar recently finished up newly designed solar power collection dishes at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF). Called SunCatchers, the new dishes have a refined design that will be used in commercial-scale deployments of the units beginning in 2010.
“The four new dishes are the next-generation model of the original SunCatcher system. Six first-generation SunCatchers built over the past several years at the NSTTF have been producing up to 150KW [kilowatts] of grid-ready electrical power during the day,” says Chuck Andraka, the lead Sandia project engineer. “Every part of the new system has been upgraded to allow for a high rate of production and cost reduction.”
