Ahura Energy Claims Breakthrough in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)
My drive up to the Bay Area yesterday included a meeting with Ahura Energy CEO Fareed Sfard in the quaint town of Saratoga. But what once was originally a sleepy stagecoach stop is now the home to a company that claims to have set the world on fire with a huge breakthrough in renewable energy.
In fact, Ahura’s innovation in the field of concentrated solar power (CSP) promises grid parity (an equivalence in price of electricity with that of coal, the dominant source of electrical energy in the US today) more or less immediately. The secret sauce? Proprietary low-cost actuators that track the sun through the sky without the expense of the electric motors and controls that normally go along with this set of technologies, eliminating the major cost components that hold back even our most advanced CSP system designs. An enormous claim, to be sure.
“I have a saying that goes like this,” I joked with Fareed as we spoke; “It’s always cheap until you build it,” referring to the fact that, at this moment, most of Ahura’s technology is working only at far smaller scale than that necessary to prove real-world application.
My host smiled and nodded politely, undeterred by my remark, which he certainly could have taken as a cheap shot. But I wasn’t worried about his taking offense; I had seen though our many previous conversations that he is a man of science, with a gracious bearing.
Further, let’s acknowledge two facts. Here is:
1) A guy who ran 12 factories of the biggest contract manufacturer in the world (Solectron) which put more products into the market than anyone on the planet over a period of 3 1/2 years. I believe this is particularly relevant, as those were products with complexity and tolerance requirements with 3 or more orders of magnitude more complicated than what Ahura has here — which is “light assembly” (vs. real manufacturing).
and …
2) A bill of materials which truly is incredibly simple and inexpensive.
We’ll see what happens, but I actually am betting he can come up with the goods.
Please let me know if you’d like to learn more.
Very interesting – however I assume we are talking about applications in solar tower technologies (as opposed to trough technologies). Have to see what component of cost heliostat motors are. Question also is the capability of workin this product in a control environment.
But it’s always good to hear more.
More info please! Is anyone using metal “muscle wire” cables to tilt the solar trackers?
Of course we’d like to learn more. But is a description of the actual mechanism and how it works top-secret or is there more you can tell?
This is truly excellent news if it pans out and isn’t interfered with. I’ve long been hoping for an advance to allow CSP to take its proper place in our energy economy and this sounds very promising. I can’t wait to hear more about it.
I am particularly interested in CSP technologies that are not water hogs (and most of these technologies to date are very water intensive).
If the actuator methodology is to be used for concentration, perhaps this is also parallel usage for the non concentrated flat plate PV industry as well.
Well, Craig, while this makes an interesting PR statement it falls woefully short of any particular details or information to really get me excited.
I appreciate that, Don. I should have mentioned that I’m under NDA re: the technology. And, though I have more access to the technology than you do, I’m still not 100% clear on it. I hope to see a demo later in the month, and I’ll certainly provide as much information as I can asap.
If the actuator technology is inexpensive and reliable, perhaps it could also be used for non-solar technologies.
However, superior actuators would not solve the problem resulting from the fact that the sun is not always shining. In winter, even with tracking and no clouds, the average power would still be less than 30% of peak power so, for it to be practical, there would be a need for considerable storage capacity. In theory, heat could be stored in tanks of molten salt so that when the sun is not shining, power could be generated from the stored heat. However, it has not yet been shown practical to store enough heat to generate adequate power for more than a few hours. And, unless or until there is economical and reliable energy storage available, even if the solar collector technology combined with actuators were free, solar power still would not be a practical way to meet the energy requirements of large prosperous countries.
Advances in solar power technology, including storage, could make it more practical in areas where connecting to the grid is not an option; people would just have to put up with less reliable power at a high cost.
Instead of concentrating only on the solar generation of electricity, 2GreenEnergy should also cover power storage systems without which solar power would remain impractical. It should cover the land area required to store large amounts of power and the cost per KWH of storage systems with enough capacity to make solar power practical.
Currently, the following methods are available to store energy, but not at an acceptable cost:
batteries,
water pumped to a higher elevation,
air compressed into underground caverns,
flywheel storage,
storing heat in tanks containing a mixture of KNO3 and NaNO3
Again, solar power will NEVER be practical until or unless there are reliable and economical means to store power. Therefore, 2GreenEnergy should cover energy storage systems.
You have forgotten CO2METHANOL.
The production side is all well and good but well subscribed. Has Ahura given any thought to a use for the waste heat by-product?
Still, working the demand side is where Futura prefers to be.
nice job, but can not make a comment, because you and Facebook think every one is a member, and make no effort to do any thing about it. thanks , w j sperry.
I am not entirely sure of the reason for this article. It lacks information beyond the statement that the author was in a room and under a NDA. A slightly more journalistic approach would have at least given a bit of history and a setting: Heliostats have been being worked on for centuries. There are many classic wind up models. In modern times we use a system of finding the “brightest spot in the sky” or a more complex mathmatical model that predicts where the sun will be at any moment on any given day. Mechanisms to accomplish the movements have also moved from a simple pivot with actuators for each axis to a turntable carrying a simple tilting mechanism.
Have you all heard about Solar Energy promotion in Thailand? Ministry of Energy has stopped Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) on solar energy last year because the applications for PPA were more than 2 GiggaWatts that was over the target of 500 MW in the year 2022. From those accepted PPA more than 1.5 GiggaWatts were solar thermal power plant and most of them are CSP. You may also know that Thailand locates near the equater and has very low direct radiation that may also low the efficiency of CSP. If the technology of Ahura energy can solve this problem, I’m quite sure that Ahura energy will have a big market in Thailand. Please be hurry becuse the PPA of those CSP will expire in the next one or two year.
Certainly very interesting. However more info is needed to verify the claim. Facing the sun under windy conditions is very important to get full performance.
essence of most of the comments posted seem to be that not enough information is made available about the new supposed to be innovative actuator/heliostat system. sooner this is addressed by the enterpreneur the better because the world, particularly developing countries in the tropical region is hungry forSolar RE. all the more so with the nuclear source being pushed to the back bench after the japan disaster.
Dear Commenter’s,
This is my first comment, and I am not sure how to find out if I get a reply. Therefore, I have provided another means, anyone interested in responding and/or commenting may contact me through my company e-mail.
Everyone in the renewable energy industry rightly uses coal fired electricity costs from paid off plants as the price goal.
Wind and Solar are seen as the two dominate renewable technologies because no fuel is needed.
I would like to introduce you to a New Technology that offers some very interesting advantages.
We are confident of being able to produce Green Electricity that will compete with the cost fired electricity.
We are confident of a plant factor of over 96%, meaning the rated capacity of the plant is available95% of the time as compared to wind or solar, which are 40% or less.
The generating systems will be able available in three size ranges Residential, Industrial/Commercial, and utility, as you know, distributed power is the way to go. The generating systems can be placed in buildings that fit into their surrounding so that if you were driving by you would not know what it was, they can even be placed underground if needed.
By going to the website above you can get a better overview of the technology. We recently demonstrated the technology to a large utility company how has added us to their radar screen.
Thank you for your time.
Good Morning,
I got excited when I started reading this, then my excitement fizzled away when I didn’t see anything of substance about the technology (or lack there of) mentioned. Is this a gyro system that works with the rotation of the earth and has nothing to do with programs, motors, etc.?
I can’t see a simple tracker with such an enormous impact, but I guess I wait for more.
Thanks,
I thought 2GreenEnergy was supposed to be serious. Promoting scams doesn’t serve this site well. How do I know Ahura Energy is a scam? Sfard says they’ll produce 350% more power per space than traditional solar systems. That’s a dead give away to anyone who understands anything about CSP. Sfard has provided no substantive information.
The comment by Breath of the Wind was very good.
GreenTechMedia publishes more good info about CSP than anyone. Check out some of their recent reviews. CSP was great 5 years ago. I too was a believer even two years ago (though not in companies such as Ausra. I called that one very early.) But I adjust my beliefs when new data arrives.
If Ahura Energy releases any info, I’ll take a look at it.
That figure (350%) is a comparison to CPV, not CSP. I believe that this guy is for real — at least in terms of theory and laboratory-scale engineering. The question, of course, is how will this scale to meaningful sizes.
We provide adequate substantiation with hard data to the companies that we see a potential synergy with in person under NDA. As such, there are significant interests on our products, there will be several public announcements.
Sol Orchard is one of the leading CPV developers in the nation. If this technology is BETTER than CPV, then I’m interested in learning more.
Jeff
We teach our boy scouts to control where they are pointing their signal mirrors by using the bright spot as a sight. A machine could do this better.