Israel recently saw the unveiling of the HelioBooster, which is a project that was taken up along with some Chinese collaboration. The HelioBooster is a giant dish that acts much like smaller heliostat mirrors and heats up the air in surrounding area. This makes it a highly efficient way to tap into solar power when compared to conventional solar power sources.
The HelioBooster heats up the air in its adjacent area to temperatures of around 650 degrees Celsius and this air is then channeled using tunnels which ultimately generate steam that runs turbines to produce power. The biggest advantage of these giant dishes is the fact that the can produce huge amounts of energy without occupying much space. This obviously is a great asset in areas where land is a premium asset.
The Heliofocus solar technology allows currently for the production of 130 kW of electricity by utilizing just 500 square meters of land for the HelioBooster. This is what makes the latest unveiling in Israel so alluring and obviously adds to the solar power producing capabilities of the country. It will be interesting to see when more such installations will open up in both the nations as at this point one obviously feels the sooner the better…
Via: Greenprophet