The Gyrosolé™ solar power system and trademark are proprietary to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The Gyrosolé™ solar power system employs innovative improvements to well-established technologies that potentially offer reduced development risk, enhanced performance and capabilities, and dramatically lower cost.
The main components of this system include:
Click on the diagram for an enlarged view
- Concentrating solar heat collection system—an efficient and inexpensive collector that tracks the sun and concentrates its incident energy as heat; it employs a proprietary alignment scheme and receiver design for improved efficiency over existing technology.
- Thermal energy storage system—an efficient and inexpensive “thermal battery” that enables, in particular, collection of full morning’s solar heating for production of electric power in the afternoon during the period of peak power revenue and maximum consumption. It also enables the recycling of “waste” heat from the production of electricity, a unique feature that significantly enhances system efficiency.
- Heat engine & generator—an innovative and potentially inexpensive system for the generation of electric power, even at modest (~1 kW) power levels, but applicable to much higher power levels as well. This heat engine, or “Harmonic Engine”, is a unique design that appears to offer significantly better performance-to-cost levels than current Stirling engine technology.
- Control system (not shown)—a digital system that provides control of the various components for optimal performance. Significantly, it includes a method of energy arbitrage to deliver electric power to the electric grid primarily during periods of peak revenue (for maximum economic benefit).
As illustrated, heat from the solar collector is transferred to the thermal energy storage system, from where it may be deployed to the heat engine & generator to produce electricity, or used directly for example to provide hot water. Also note that “waste” heat from the heat engine is returned to the storage system, providing a significant improvement in efficiency not available in existing centralized solar thermal power plants. An optional additional heat source is also indicated.
The photograph below depicts demonstrable components of the Gyrosolé™ solar power system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
