Our Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Cell System

Our solar energy system is based on the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Cell. In its most common form, each Cell consists of its own array of SunScoop solar collectors and dedicated packed-bed energy units which store their high-temperature heat. When called upon, some or all Cells deliver their heat to a central location to create electricity and/or deliver heat for industrial use such as cement manufacturing.

Our Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Cell system has many advantages:

Renewable

Cells concentrate direct sunlight, a free and renewable resource.
Cells can use air as their thermal fluid, also free and renewable.

Widespread applicability

There are large, populated areas around the world with strong sunshine. As our manufacturing costs drop, our markets will expand smoothly into those now considered marginal for CSP.

Superlatively environment-friendly

In full operation, Cells combust nothing, emit nothing harmful.
SunScoop collectors can only leak air.
Cells’ energy source is delivered cleanly, free of charge.
As their storage material, Cells use common, rocky materials widely available in surface deposits.
Cells do not need the kind of rare and strategic metals on which photovoltaic panels and battery packs depend, ones which often require sub-surface mining, overseas manufacturing, round-the-world shipping, and expensive recycling.

Longer term storage

Cells will include short-term, longer-term packed-bed storage. The largest storage unit could be truly massive and efficient.

Flexible

Cells use a gas, not a heavy liquid, to collect and move their heat about. Consequently, they can occupy slopes, hillsides, and even the sunny side of a large industrial structures.
Small arrays of Cells could be built within cities, dedicated to serving specific industrial sectors or institutions, for example.
Cell storage can input heat from any source. They can output their energy as electricity, or heat for industrial or space heating purposes.

Resilient

As each Cell has its independent collection and storage, the system’s overall resiliency is enhanced.

Competitive

Cells’ use of precise solar concentration and high temperature air permits efficiencies greater than competitive systems. Solar energy is free, but land is not.
As electric vehicles become more plentiful, and household PV systems proliferate, demand for batteries and their strategic materials will only increase. These forces will make large-scale power plant battery storage systems less and less economically attractive, particularly since batteries’ and PV panels’ performances diminish with age and will require complete replacement each 15 to 30 years.
Unlike batteries, Cell storage is chemically stable.
Cells will have internal waste heat recycling providing additional co-generation level of efficiencies our prototyping will determine.
Cells are fundamentally modular which creates very strong scale-up potential compared to conventional CSP systems.

Socially desirable

Cells will rate near the top of the list of emission-reduction technologies.
Reliable, independent supplies of clean energy will become locally available for the first time in many areas of the world, freeing their users of market instabilities.
Local business will develop to supply locally sourced storage materials.
When the only alternative is the burning of fossil fuels, renewable energy will be preferred and supported.

Public and Government support

A heightened awareness of our climate crisis is leading to increasing public and government support. Once Cells are farther advanced in their development and more widely understood, support for them will only grow.

Our Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Cell System

Our Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Cell system has many advantages:

Cells concentrate direct sunlight, a free and renewable resource.

Cells can use air as their thermal fluid, also free and renewable.

There are large, populated areas around the world with strong sunshine. As our manufacturing costs drop, our markets will expand smoothly into those now considered marginal for CSP.

In full operation, Cells combust nothing, emit nothing harmful.

SunScoop collectors can only leak air.

Cells’ energy source is delivered cleanly, free of charge.

As their storage material, Cells use common, rocky materials widely available in surface deposits.

Cells do not need the kind of rare and strategic metals on which photovoltaic panels and battery packs depend, ones which often require sub-surface mining, overseas manufacturing, round-the-world shipping, and expensive recycling.

Cells will include short-term, longer-term packed-bed storage. The largest storage unit could be truly massive and efficient.

Cells use a gas, not a heavy liquid, to collect and move their heat about. Consequently, they can occupy slopes, hillsides, and even the sunny side of a large industrial structures.

Small arrays of Cells could be built within cities, dedicated to serving specific industrial sectors or institutions, for example.

Cell storage can input heat from any source. They can output their energy as electricity, or heat for industrial or space heating purposes.

As each Cell has its independent collection and storage, the system’s overall resiliency is enhanced.

Cells’ use of precise solar concentration and high temperature air permits efficiencies greater than competitive systems. Solar energy is free, but land is not.

Unlike batteries, Cell storage is chemically stable.

Cells will have internal waste heat recycling providing additional co-generation level of efficiencies our prototyping will determine.

Cells are fundamentally modular which creates very strong scale-up potential compared to conventional CSP systems.

Cells will rate near the top of the list of emission-reduction technologies.

Reliable, independent supplies of clean energy will become locally available for the first time in many areas of the world, freeing their users of market instabilities.

Local business will develop to supply locally sourced storage materials.

When the only alternative is the burning of fossil fuels, renewable energy will be preferred and supported.

A heightened awareness of our climate crisis is leading to increasing public and government support. Once Cells are farther advanced in their development and more widely understood, support for them will only grow.