Yep! focussed light anything is a hassle really-- mirrors have to be maintained and positioned. For anything larger than a family, mirrors have to be unrealistically large..
There was a concentrated light power station in north of Vegas, but it bankrupted the company that built it. They didn't think about storage at the time
>As of 2023, it is operated by its new owner, Vinci SA, and in a new contract with NV Energy, it now supplies solar energy _at night only_, drawing on [molten salt] thermal energy stored each day.
In buildings with water heating this is already commonly done, accumulating heat in water tanks. Size of water tanks is dimensioned after how much heat you have to store.
Electric heating with water heating is sometimes used in Northern Europe at least, often with a heat pump.
Ultimate would be solar panels on the roof, heat pump to multiply the electricity 3x-5x and water tank storage to last 24 hours.... Never recoup the investment though..
I was expecting some sort of cool focused-light cooker like a solar oven, but it's basically just an electric cooker powered by solar cells.
This should scale up for heating a house at night, too.
Yep! focussed light anything is a hassle really-- mirrors have to be maintained and positioned. For anything larger than a family, mirrors have to be unrealistically large..
There was a concentrated light power station in north of Vegas, but it bankrupted the company that built it. They didn't think about storage at the time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Pr...
>As of 2023, it is operated by its new owner, Vinci SA, and in a new contract with NV Energy, it now supplies solar energy _at night only_, drawing on [molten salt] thermal energy stored each day.
In buildings with water heating this is already commonly done, accumulating heat in water tanks. Size of water tanks is dimensioned after how much heat you have to store.
Electric heating with water heating is sometimes used in Northern Europe at least, often with a heat pump.
Ultimate would be solar panels on the roof, heat pump to multiply the electricity 3x-5x and water tank storage to last 24 hours.... Never recoup the investment though..
It even scales up to a whole town: https://polarnightenergy.com/news/worlds-largest-sand-batter...