Dishing out power with a solar engine

While most of the solar-electric industry tries to squeeze more power from solar panels out of photovoltaic cells built from silicon or other materials, a company called Infinia is building a curved dish, which looks like a large satellite TV dish, to be mounted on the ground. It will use the sun's heat and a motor called a Stirling engine to generate power. Infinia's solar Stirling engine, which concentrates light from the parabolic dish, is a mechanical device, which the company claims can be more cost-effective than traditional solar panels. Standard solar photovoltaic panels are generally 12 percent to 15 percent efficient at converting light to electricity. Infinia's planned 3-kilowatt Stirling engine will operate at 24 percent efficiency.

Source: news.com.comAdded: 27 March 2007