Morgansolar.com Updates

We hadn’t updated the Morgansolar.com site in a while, and there were some changes that were overdue.  We’ve updated the product photos, descriptions and a few small details about the LSO.  Most of these changes were to account for the transition from the triangle LSO design to the square LSO design.

Trianlge to Square LSO Design

This change allowed us to reduce dead space on the panels (the edges of the optic have a small moulding flange, but it added up) and makes assembly and manufacture easier. It also allowed us to use less aluminum per panel, so in general, it was a big improvement over the previous design. We had always planned to transition to this design, but there were some technical challenges we needed to solve first. When a supplier delay in September forced us to wait a couple of months, we used the time to tackle the challenges and migrated to the current design ahead of schedule.

The new Sun Simba HCPV based on the square LSO design looks like this:

Sun Simba HCPV Design - A high efficiency concentrating photovoltaic solar panel.

And the product section has been updated to reflect the design changes.

We’re getting very close to having working prototypes of our other products, and we already have working prototypes of the Simba, so things are fairly exciting around here.  There are some more photos on our Flickr page.

Some Pics

This is Keith and Phil testing some PV cells. The pictures just look really cool.

Keith and Phil testing PV cells

Here’s another one…

Keith testing PV cells

Also, here’s a pic of some of the aluminum frames for the first Simba Prototype.  For the prototype we’re not using the Aluminum “H” extrusions since those are going to be manufactured specifically for the production Simba.  These are off the shelf aluminum parts for the prototype, although it’s just the aluminum frame, so it doesn’t change anything.

We’ll be posting some important details on the differences between the prototype and the final production system in a week or so.

Simba Prototype Components

Sun Simba Press Release

We just issued the following Press Release (PDF file download). Please feel free to download and distribute this file freely.

New Product Info on Website

We just uploaded the changes to the product page to give a little more information on the Sun Simba HCPV. We’re going to eventually be adding spec sheets and technical specifications, but for now we’re just giving a thorough overview. We’ve included a couple of images people haven’t seen yet, and we’re getting a few more images made in the meantime.

Sun Simba HCPV on Greentech Media

There’s a really great article on the Sun Simba HCPV up on Greentech Media. They cover the basics of what makes it such a great system, they explain the advantages of the thinness and the staggered rows, and have a great photo gallery at the end of the article.  If you’re at all interested in what we’re doing over here, you should check it out.

We’ll be posting a full product page for the Simba this week as well.  Exciting stuff.  One image they posted that hasn’t appeared on our website yet is this one:

Sun Simba HCPV Cut-away

This shows a cross section of a Sun Simba HCPV panel set in a row, with the aluminum “H” included.  The optics look a little thicker in this image than they are in reality, and this is the 1000+ suns concentration configuration with the broader triangle optic.  You can also make out the tiny cell receiver assembly inlcuding visible through the optic.  I think this really emphasizes the thinness and low profile of the panel.

Digg Main page

Ok, we weren’t expecting to end up on the main page of Digg, and definitely not this early in our product development. We’re in the prototype phase right now, and we won’t have panels for sale for about a year (sooner possibly, but some of the time lines depend on certification processes over which we don’t have control). Also, the original, and much more detailed article about us was published by Jennifer Kho of Greentech Media.

We’re going to be installing a demonstration unit in the next 4 to 6 weeks at the Earth Rangers Centre in Woodbridge, Ontario.

We’re posting some additional images of the Sun Simba HCPV along with details fairly soon – this weekend or early next week. What we’re going to post should give a solid background on what it looks like, how it works, why it has better thermal and wind load characteristics than other CPV panels and most of all, why it’s affordable.

Here are a couple of images that we have ready now; these and others will be embedded within the site itself in the product page soon.

Sun Simba HCPV

That’s an image of the panel itself. A couple of notes – each of those rows is made up of thin acrylic optics coupled to the PV, and they’re held in place by an aluminum “H”. You can see a cross section of the H-frame better in the images below.

Sun Simba HCPV Thermal Modeling

Here you can see a computer model of the thermal properties of the Sun Simba HCPV. By having the heat on the edge of an open system that allows for air flow, heat escapes much faster than it can build up. This image is for 30 degrees Celsius ambient air, but in real world applications, the hottest spot on the panels is likely to be considerably cooler.  (Factors such as air humidity, wind, even gentle breezes and other factors can impact the system thermal properties in our favour.)  As we develop more models, and as we run experiments on live modules, we’ll update these results.

We’re experimenting with the optimal vertical spacing of the rows and have found we can go quite small without hurting the thermals. These are roughly 10 cm wide, 3 cm high, and in this image spaced around 3 cm apart. In the final version, the gaps will be smaller.

Also note, this tracks the sun, so the lower panels are never in the shadows of the panels above.

Sun Simba HCPV Wind Loading

This image shows the wind loading. We’re running models of normal panels without the air spaces, and the exact amount of reduction in wind load depends on the speed of the wind, but with 70 km/h winds, the forces are reduced by around 60% of what they would be for a typical solar panel. The forces due to the wind are much more significant than those due to the weight of the panels, so the tight requirements on tracker stiffness are substantially relaxed. By reducing the wind load, you reduce downtime, and reduce tracker costs.

We’re publishing more details soon.

HCPV Systems

When talking about investors, people often talk about how you need to communicate what your “magic” is.  What is it that you can do that makes your company special.  And here at Morgan Solar, our magic is in our optics, the Light-guide Solar Optic (LSO).  We can make optical concentration systems that just behave differently, and let us design systems that cost less and work better.  That’s our magic.

But to people on the outside, it’s not always 100% clear what we’re doing with those optics.

HCPV and LCPV

HCPV Systems

HCPV – High Concentrating Photovoltaic systems.  Basically, when talking about concentrating photovoltaic systems, people usually divide the marketing into high and low concentration systems.  There doesn’t seem to be a hard number, but concentration factors over 50 or100 suns are usually considered high concentrating, and low concentration systems usually have concentration factors of 2 suns to 20 suns.  That’s a rough generalization though, there’s no official standard or anything.

Our first project, the one that we’ve talked about and blogged about the most is the Sun Simba HCPV.  This system is based on using the LSO optics to produce between 800 and 1400 suns of concentration.  In layman’s terms, 1000 suns concentration means the sunlight striking the surface of the LSO is redirected to shine out of a point on the edge that is 1/1000th the size of the surface.  So, we can use 1/1000th as much photovoltaic material (PV), and still generate lots of power.  So we’re trading the cost of PV for the cost of a 5 millimetre thick sheet of acrylic.

There’s much to be said about this product, but something I specifically wanted to mention here is that when you’re concentrating light at those levels, you have to track the sun.  So these panels are being designed for ground mounted tracker systems that follow the sun very accurately.  Even if it wasn’t a requirement, when you’re designing systems for solar farm scale applications, adding tracking dramatically increase your total output, and more importantly, your output in the late afternoons and early evenings when electricity demand is the highest.  So the tracker is both a requirement and a benefit.  So for interested home users, this is more realistic in a community co-op model rather than installations at individual houses.

We’re installing a demonstration system at the Earth Rangers Centre, and we’ll be exhibiting another system at the Solar Power International 2008 show.

We’re also working on some LCPV systems, a solar window and a solar wall that concentrate in the 4 to 10 suns range.  I’ll talk more about those in a future post.

Back from hiatus

Hi everyone, sorry for the posting hiatus, but things have been insane around here.  For the next couple of weeks there will be semi-regular posts here, but for now it’s just a brief note hello and a couple of updates.

Updates

The Earth Rangers Centre Demo Site

Everything is on track for this, and right now it looks like the first panels will be installed in the third week of September, with the remainder of the panels in place by second or third week of October.  We’ve already received the tracker and had it delivered to the site, and we’re waiting on the delivery of the first batch of prototype optics from our provider and we’re all set for the assembly process.  The installed has been booked and we’ll be mounting the tracker in a few weeks.  Exciting stuff for us.  We’ll be putting pictures here as soon as they’re available.

Solar Power International 2008

We’ve finalized our booth plan and we’re going be to showing a prototype of our Sun Block solar wall system (more details on that later) and a small version of the Sun Simba HCPV.  Should be pretty cool.

Sun Simba HCPV Details

We’re waiting on the go ahead from the lawyers regarding our patents, but in a week or two we’ll be publishing details on the Sun Simba HCPV system.  We’ve shown it to a couple of people in confidence, and people are pretty impressed.

That’s it for now.

First Sun Simba HCPV Demo Site

Projects

So, it’s official, we’re announcing the installation of our first Sun Simba HCPV demonstration facility at the Earth Rangers Centre just outside of Toronto in Woodbridge, Ontario.  This is exciting for a couple of reasons.

Our strategy has been to make it to the demonstration prototype stage prior to seeking external funding – demonstrate our technology before we start talking to investors.  (What we can do is pretty amazing, so a little proof to quell people’s healthy scepticism is a good thing.)  We’ve been developing the Sun Simba HCPV for a while, and we’re going to be releasing details on how it works in the next few weeks.

It’s one thing to say that we’ve built a low-cost, high-efficiency CPV system with a long list of advantages over other systems, we’re looking forward to showing people.

The other reason this is exciting is that Earth Rangers will be hosting the demo.  Earth Rangers, if you haven’t heard of them, are a non-profit organization dedicated to children’s environmental education and action, and to demonstrating cutting-edge environmental technologies. In the words of one of their engineers, they believe in implementing smart environmental technologies now, and they believe in walking their talk.

The Earth Rangers Centre is a certified LEED Gold building that is an amazing model of environmental technology in action.  After discussions and a tour of the facility, we’re most likely going to be installing our demo system just south of a building on the site that already features a rooftop PV installation. Our demo will be tied into the existing system.  In addition to hosting the demo system and providing us with a beautiful location, they’re going to be providing us with monitoring support as well as access to their facilities.  Their enthusiasm to support cutting-edge solar energy technology research translates into a perfect setting for us to showcase the Simba.

It’s a beautiful spot too.  We’ll be installing the demonstration system in mid to late September and releasing more details soon.

Cool, eh?

Announcement Next Week

About Us

We’ve had an interesting week on many levels, but the biggest item is that we’ve finalized the location and host for our demonstration site for the Sun Simba HCPV and it’s WAY cooler than we were originally planning.  Basically, the demonstration site is perfect in just about every way it could be, and we’re going to be mounting the tracker in mid September.  So, we’re going to sort out the last details and we’ll be announcing it next week.

We’re pretty excited, not only is the spot itself cool, but we’ll be able to monitor the output from the panel and the electricity we generate will go to a good cause.  So, announcement next week, but we’re excited.

For Ontarians, have a great long weekend, for the rest of you out there, enjoy the regular weekend.

Also, we’ll miss you Nicole!  Thanks for the work this summer and we hope you enjoyed working here.