As spectacular because the rise of photo voltaic and wind farms has been over the previous 20 years, reaching full decarbonization would require many complementary applied sciences. That’s as a result of renewables solely provide intermittent energy. They additionally can not immediately present the excessive temperatures required for a lot of industrial processes.
Today, 247Solar builds high-temperature concentrated solar energy methods that use in a single day thermal power storage to offer round the clock electrical energy and industrial-grade warmth.
The firm’s modular methods can be utilized as standalone microgrids for communities or to offer electrical energy in distant areas reminiscent of mines and farms. It can be used along side wind and standard photo voltaic farms, offering clients with 24/7 energy from renewables and permitting them to offset grid utilization.
“One of my motivations for engaged on this method was to attempt to resolve the issue of intermittency,” mentioned 247Solar CEO Bruce Anderson ’69, SM ’73. “I do not see how we will get to zero emissions with photo voltaic photovoltaics (PV) and wind. Even with PV, wind, and batteries, we can’t get there, as a result of there’s all the time dangerous climate, and the present ones battery shouldn’t be economical for lengthy durations. There ought to be an answer that works 24 hours a day.”
The firm’s system was impressed by the design of a high-temperature warmth exchanger by the late MIT Professor Emeritus David Gordon Wilson, who co-founded the corporate with Anderson. The firm built-in the warmth exchanger into what Anderson describes as a traditional, jet-engine-like turbine, which allows the turbine to supply energy by circulating ambient stress sizzling air with out combustion or emissions – the so-called on the firm’s first within the business.
Here’s how the system works: Each 247Solar system makes use of an array of sun-tracking mirrors referred to as heliostats to replicate daylight onto the highest of a central tower. The tower has a proprietary photo voltaic receiver that heats the air to almost 1,000 Celsius at atmospheric stress. The wind is then used to drive 247Solar’s generators and generate 400 kilowatts of electrical energy and 600 kilowatts of warmth. Some of the recent air can also be routed by a long-term thermal power storage system, the place it heats strong heat-retaining supplies. The saved warmth is then used to run generators when the solar stops shining.
“We provide round the clock electrical energy, however we additionally provide a mix of warmth and energy choices, with the flexibility to warmth as much as 970 Celsius to be used in industrial processes,” Anderson mentioned. “It’s a really versatile system.”
The firm’s first deployment was with a big utility in India. If that goes effectively, 247Solar hopes to quickly scale as much as different utilities, companies, and communities around the globe.
A brand new method to concentrated photo voltaic
Anderson saved in contact together with his MIT community after graduating in 1973. He served as director of MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) between 1996 and 2000 and was elected as an alumni member of the MIT Corporation in 2013. ILP connects firms in MIT’s community of scholars, college, and alumni to facilitate innovation, and the expertise modified the course of Anderson’s profession.
“It was a really fascinating job, and from it two issues occurred,” Anderson mentioned. “One is that I understand that I’m an entrepreneur and never good across the college, and the opposite is that I’m reminded of the numerous superb improvements which have come from MIT.”
After leaving as director, Anderson began a startup incubator the place he labored with MIT professors to begin firms. Eventually, one of many professors was Wilson, who invented a brand new warmth exchanger and a ceramic turbine. Anderson and Wilson fashioned a small group to commercialize the know-how within the early 2000s.
Anderson did his MIT grasp’s thesis on photo voltaic power within the Nineteen Seventies, and the group realized that the warmth exchanger made doable a novel methodology of concentrated solar energy. In 2010, they obtained a $6 million improvement grant from the US Department of Energy. But their first photo voltaic receiver was broken in delivery to a nationwide laboratory for testing, and the corporate ran out of cash.
It wasn’t till 2015 that Anderson was capable of elevate the cash to get the corporate off the bottom. At that point, a brand new high-temperature metallic alloy was developed that Anderson exchanged for Wilson’s ceramic warmth exchanger.
The Covid-19 pandemic has considerably slowed 247’s plans to construct an indication facility at its Arizona check website, however sturdy buyer curiosity has saved the corporate busy. Concentrated solar energy would not work all over the place — Arizona’s clear sunshine is healthier than Florida’s hazy skies, for instance — however Anderson is now speaking to communities in elements of the US, India, Africa, and Australia is the place know-how generally is a good match.
These days, the corporate is more and more proposing to combine its methods with conventional photo voltaic PV, permitting clients to reap the advantages of low-cost photo voltaic electrical energy in the course of the day whereas utilizing power 247 at evening.
“That means we get no less than 24, if no more, hours of energy from a sunny day,” Anderson mentioned. “We proceed with these hybrid methods, which work like a Prius: Sometimes you employ one power supply, typically you employ one other.”
The firm additionally sells HeatStorE thermal batteries as standalone methods. Instead of being heated by a photo voltaic system, thermal storage is heated by circulating air by an electrical coil heated by electrical energy, from the grid, standalone PV, or wind. The warmth will be saved for 9 hours or extra in a single load after which despatched as electrical energy and industrial course of warmth at 250 Celsius, or as warmth solely, as much as 970 Celsius.
Anderson says the 247’s thermal battery is about one-seventh the price of lithium-ion batteries per kilowatt hour produced.
Scaling a brand new mannequin
The firm retains its system versatile for any path clients need to full decarbonization.
In addition to the 247 undertaking in India, the corporate is in superior talks with off-grid communities within the United States and Egypt, mining operators around the globe, and the federal government of a small African nation. . Anderson mentioned the corporate’s subsequent buyer is more likely to be an off-grid group within the US that at present depends on diesel mills for energy.
The firm can also be partnering with a monetary agency that can permit it to entry capital to fund its personal tasks and promote clear power on to clients, which Anderson mentioned will assist 247 develop quicker. quite than relying solely on promoting complete methods to every buyer.
As it strikes to develop its deployments, Anderson believes 247 provides an answer to assist clients reply to elevated stress from governments in addition to group members.
“Developing economies in locations like Africa don’t have any different to fossil fuels if they need 24/7 electrical energy,” Anderson mentioned. “Our possession and working prices are lower than half of diesel gen-sets. Today’s clients actually need to cease producing emissions if they’ll, in order that there are villages, mines, industries, and entire nations the place folks inside say, ‘We cannot burn diesel anymore.’ “
