ESolar
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| Venture backed private | |
| Industry | Concentrating Solar Power Technology and Engineering |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Headquarters | Burbank, California, United States |
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Key people
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John Van Scoter (President & CEO) Bill Gross (Founder) |
| Website | www.eSolar.com |
eSolar is a privately held company that develops concentrating solar power (CSP) plant technology. The company was founded by the Pasadena-based business incubator Idealab in 2007 as a developer of CSP plant technology. The company aims to develop a low cost alternative to fossil fuels through a combination of small heliostats, modular architecture, and a high-precision sun-tracking system.
eSolar has designed heliostats that are smaller than the industry norm, allowing for pre-fabrication, mass-manufacturing, and easy installation, thereby reducing production and installation costs. eSolar announced a new heliostat design, referred to as SCS5, during the 2013 SolarPACES Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. SCS5 offers a more simplified design and enhanced reliability to reduce total installed solar collector system cost by more than a third.
eSolar has developed a sun-tracking control system that is able to calibrate heliostats and monitor the performance of each heliostat within the field. Tests have shown an unprecedented pointing accuracy and high thermal concentration ratios. [citation]
An array of heliostats reflect solar radiation to a tower mounted thermal receiver. In the direct-steam configuration, the concentrated solar energy boils water in the receiver to produce steam. The steam is piped to a steam turbine generator, which converts the energy to electricity. The steam out of the turbine is condensed and pressurized back into the receiver. In the molten salt configuration, the concentrated solar energy heats molten salt to store thermal energy for future use.
eSolar's field layout design is built around the concept of scalable modules. In the direct-steam configuration, each module comprises over 20,000 square meters of heliostats arranged in two subfields - north and south - which track the sun and concentrate solar energy to the tower mounted receiver. The field layout is a simple, regular design that eliminates precision surveying and ground penetration. In the molten salt configuration a hexagonal solar field consists of over 100,000 square meters of reflector area.
A 46 MW eSolar power unit consists of sixteen heliostat fields and towers, a single steam turbine generator set, and a steam condenser, with a typical footprint of approximately 100 hectares (250 acres). These basic 46 MW units are designed to be scaled up to fit specific power requirements. In the molten salt configuration, 10 modules may be aggregated to build a 100MW, 50% capacity factor solar power plant. Plants of various electric output and capacity factor may be assembled through use or varying numbers of molten salt modules.
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Wikipedia