Advantages

Engine Hybridization

  • The turbine engine can take advantage of natural gas access or other fuels to augment or replace the sun’s heat energy during cloud cover or after sundown, alleviating the issue of solar intermittency.

Proven Turbine Technology

  • Highly durable turbine engines can reliably last for decades.
  • Proven performance and trusted engineering design via long-term utilization in aerospace, energy, and transportation industries.

Versatile Technology Platform

  • 90% of the Solar Dish-Turbine system is a shared technology platform, allowing it to be deployed to meet diverse energy needs.
  • The dish is the most optically-efficient form of concentrator with a thermal concentration ratio of 1800x, more than double that of other prevalent CSP designs.
  • The 22-meter (75-foot) diameter dish, among the largest designs in the world, captures more than 320 square meters of sunlight, heating the air at its focus to over 1700 °F (925 °C).

Low Environmental Impact

  • The purpose-built turbo-alternator engine utilizes air as the working fluid and requires zero water to operate. The only water needed is to clean the mirrors, resulting in only 0.4 gal/MWh of water consumption – a momentous benefit for areas with low water resources.

Modular and Scalable

  • Scalable from megawatts to gigawatts of power – enough to power specific demand applications or entire cities.
  • Maintenance and upkeep can be performed on individual dishes without requiring plant downtime, preserving plant operation and power availability.
  • Component independence allows plants to be sited on sloped, uneven, or oddly-sized properties.

Energy Storage Opportunity

  • In its storage configuration, the technology can help enable wind energy by storing its off-peak output in the form of compressed air in naturally-occurring geologic caverns or above-ground manufactured storage tanks. This energy is later released to the TurboSolar Power System to generate electricity during periods of peak demand.