Morgan Solar: Simple, Cheap, and Efficient Concentrated Solar Tech, Part 2
A few weeks ago, I posted a brief introduction to Morgan Solar, a Toronto-based start-up that has invented a new method for building simple and cheap solar concentrators. Many of you asked for more details, so I asked Nicolas Morgan, the company’s Director of Business Development, some in-depth questions about Morgan Solar.
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The company, which was founded last summer by Nicolas’ brother John Paul as a result of frustration with the high cost of renewable energy, has developed a new type of concentrated solar photovoltaic (CPV) system called the Sun Simba HCPV. The Sun Simba is currently designed for solar farm applications, but future designs will be adapted for smaller rooftops. As of right now, a Sun Simba system mounted on a tracker with an area of 200 square meters will deliver 50 kW of electricity.
As I noted in my previous post about Morgan Solar, the company’s technology draws comparisons to MIT’s organic dye technology. According to Nicolas Morgan, the two technologies are completely different.
While the MIT technology operates at concentrations of 40 suns (40 times concentration), the Morgan Solar technology operates at between 500 suns and 1000 suns, with the option to scale even higher. In other words, Morgan Solar’s method is much more powerful.
Also, MIT’s technology uses dyes, while the Morgan Solar tech does not. And MIT’s method uses different layers to concentrate different parts of the spectrum, while the Sun Simba collects all of its light from a single 5 mm thick optical system.
At the same time, Morgan notes, “There’s nothing that makes our technology better than theirs…it’s doubtful that their technology and ours will be used for the same applications or in the same sort of systems.”
A demonstration prototype of the Sun Simba will be set up next month in Woodbridge, Ontario. The system, which concentrates 350 suns, will ultimately provide up to 2.5 kW of power. Prototypes concentrating 1000 suns will be set up in the US, Canada, and Spain in 2009, and full production is expected late in 2009.
But it’s not all about financial success for Morgan. “We’re a business, obviously, but I feel good knowing that a lot more solar energy might get rolled out because of what we’re doing here. If I’m able to offset an extra few million tons of carbon, if I’m able to help people get electricity where they might not have it otherwise, I’ll feel really good about that.”
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just bookmarked this site!
I think it’s a good idea, making it cheaper and more efficient; we went one more step further!
We set the future for multi renewable energy collection not as a set of straight endless rows of brittle shiny panels in a desert, or visual polluting wind turbines but as an artificial …tree…. ‘Forest’ made of artificial natural looking ‘trees’.
We make use of natures perfect design - a TREE – innovative use of the latest nanotechnologies has made it possible to introduce soon our Highly Efficient Nanoleaves assembled onto artificial natural looking ‘trees’.
The ‘Nanoleaves’ including petiole are a true ingenious concept a little power house, a combination of thermo- photovoltaics, for conversion of light and heat, joint with piezovoltaic, tiny generators that generate electricity from movement of the wind. That’s three conversions in one system (Tree) and course, our landscape still looks wonderful and it would be nicely cool in a shadow of this forest on a hot summer day.
What does this mean for the future?
The field of biomimetics is the application of methods and systems, found in nature. To capitalize on the wealth of designs and processes found in nature, engineering and technology, has spawned a number of innovations far superior to what the human mind alone could have devised. The reason is simple. Nature, through billions of years of trial and error, has produced effective solutions to innumerable complex real-world problems. The rigorous competition of natural selection means waste and efficiency are not tolerated in natural systems. Solar Botanics is replicating natural manufacturing methods as in the production of chemical compounds by plants and animals; this will enable Solar Botanics to directly tap into nature’s ingenuity. In the near future, Solar Botanics will “grow” because of improved efficiency and aesthetic design (in tune with nature) to serve our energy needs through the application of pragmatic natural solutions developed by evolution.
Trees and shrubs can be planted most of the time without permission because they fit in with our local scenery. Trees, plants and shrubs have a esthetical function the enhance our city and meeting places, or are just there to give us a nice view when we look out of our window. Trees decrease our visual awareness if it comes to visual or noise pollution. The psychology effect of trees takes care of a better micro climate, extreme temperatures are reduced and absorbed; trees and shrubs give protection against wind, and sun. Trees are a source of inspiration for artistic creativity. Trees carry a culture of history they can show the history of a place and are often proof of past history. Trees are a symbol growth and energy, trees have a economic value. The presence of trees often increases the value of property, especially mature trees that at the same time deliver more energy.
The added value of solar botanic trees are; providing shade, cooling the air, wind break, crop protection, prevention of heat islands in cities, road glare, noise barrier, protection of dune vegetation. Solar botanic trees can be fitted with additional equipment to filter the air, (taking out CO2) and water. Water management can be controlled by trees.
Various renewable energy producers are investing heavily, including Google, GE and Pickens the new kid on the block, joining the renewable energy market, their marketing machines running on maximum speed, daily TV adds on CNN and BBC are proof of the importance, to gain consumer interest, to promote green energy and so on.
However, their best efforts of promoting safe and clean energy is also reason for concern as some renewable energy systems are not all that friendly, and some industries starting to feel resistance towards their systems.
A TREE IS SO MUCH MORE
Human intervention and exploitation in the ecosystem will produce changes in order to meet the desired objectives. According to the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment, in many parts of the world the consumption of ecosystems services are managed in an unsustainable way. Therefore it is strongly necessary to find direct drivers of ecosystem management that can provide more effective cost-benefit opportunities for multipurpose systems, which can meet multiple goals, including the pervasive environmental, social, and economic objectives of sustainable development.
info@solarbotanic.com
PS: our trees also re-charge “plug-in” cars and re-load Hydro Fuel cells.
Ya Ya Ya/ we have heard all this before!!!!! another 10 to 20 years. needs more research and study.
This is extremely misleading. They have not invented this product. You act as if this is a new thing. There are probably 20 american and international companies (Emcore, Green&gold energy, Sunrgi, etc. ) that have the same exact product (500-1000x sun using fresnel lens concentrator) and are much further along with commericialization and infrastructure. This company is simply jumping on a bandwagon and is very late to the party and have nothing unique. If you are going to blog about the technology which is indeed worth discussing, at least do it with a company that is already established and installing systems world-wide.
Mike -
Thanks for your comment. What you are failing to realize is that Morgan Solar’s technology costs only one quarter as much as these other systems you mention, thus making concentrated solar viable for areas that could otherwise not afford it. I suggest you read my original post on the subject (linked in the first sentence) or check out Morgan Solar’s website.
I had looked at your previous article and their website. So, my point is this: Their cost and technology claims are unsubstantiated and not independently verifiable. The road from a startup (who is going to need to convince investors to give them money to realize their ambition) claims on a website to a commerically viable and competitive product is long and typically unsuccessful and they are already about 5 years behind. In fact, they have not even established a single commercial sized installation and their first public test is planned to be the size of an experiment, not a utility scale commericialization proof of concept. The light guide technology is not a new concept for concentrating/focusing sunlight and the sun concentrations they claim from that technology are simply not believeable. As someone pointed out already, MIT has similar technology with no where near the concentration claimed by Morgan. In addition, there are literally dozens of CPV companies and divisions of huge companies (IBM, GE, etc.) with hundreds if not thousands of brillant researchers developing CPV technology that have apparently not selected that particular concentration solution for their systems - why?.
All of that combined makes me highly sceptical of the Morgan Solar claims and certainly is just my personal opinion based on a lot of research and observation in the space. I wish them well but I seriously doubt their specific product will ever provide the low cost solution for poorer areas that you envision because they are too late and cheaper solutions will be widely available well before they even get their foot in the water.
In addition, III-V technology is set to go thin film by mid-2009 (for example, the IMM technology at Emcore) giving other more established system players extreme flexibility in CPV system design which is what I believe offers the best realistic opportunity to get solar energy costs down to an affordable level. I suggest you take a look at Emcore/NREL IMM award winning thin film technology as I believe that is the future of cheap solar you envision. I assume there are other similar technologies out there (spectralab, etc.) - I’m just more familiar with and the information is more readily availble on the Emcore IMM technology.
Thanks for the discussion.
This is getting ridiculous.
First there was Green and Gold Energy
Then SunRgi
And now this one.
Same spiel…fantastic performance more watts per dollar blah blah, but NO proven or delivered product.
Will the fun never end?
Keef
and Rover ( he is really wild today)
Woof
Neither of your articles includes any discussion of the technology or science, making it impossible to evaluate the actual solution presented. Specs are great, as is the inevitable focus on outcomes. But maybe you could spend more than a sentence mentioning the methodology. But gee, it shore is great soundin’!
Morgan Solar might be very close to having a product, if their system work as good as they claim.
You can look at the patent here:
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080271776