SOLARBEAM CONCENTRATOR VS. THE COMPETITION

Is there competition to the SolarBeam Concentrator? No. The facts below give enough evidence to prove that the SolarBeam hot water system is unmatched in efficiency and space requirements. One SolarBeam requires an area of 20 feet or less, depending on solar elevation and location. There are many types of technologies available for solar hot water.
Here is a description of the main types:

Parabolic Dish (SolarBeam): It is the most powerful type of collector which concentrates sunlight at a single, focal point, via one or more parabolic dishes—arranged in a similar fashion to a reflecting telescope focuses starlight, or a dish antenna focuses radio waves. This geometry may be used in solar furnaces and solar power plants.
There are two key phenomena to understand in order to comprehend the design of a parabolic dish. One is that the shape of a parabola is defined such that incoming rays which are parallel to the dish’s axis will be reflected toward the focus, no matter where on the dish they arrive. The second key is that the light rays from the sun arriving at the Earth’s surface are almost completely parallel. So if dish can be aligned with its axis pointing at the sun, almost all of the incoming radiation will be reflected towards the focal point of the dish—most losses are due to imperfections in the parabolic shape and imperfect reflection.

Losses due to atmosphere between the dish and its focal point are minimal, as the dish is generally designed specifically to be small enough that this factor is insignificant on a clear, sunny day.

Flat Plate Collectors: developed by Hottel and Whillier in the 1950s, are the most common type. They consist of (1) a dark flat-plate absorber of solar energy, (2) a transparent cover that allows solar energy to pass through but reduces heat losses, (3) a heat-transport fluid (air, antifreeze or water) to remove heat from the absorber, and (4) a heat insulating backing. The absorber consists of a thin absorber sheet (of thermally stable polymers, aluminum, steel or copper, to which a matte black or selective coating is applied) often backed by a grid or coil of fluid tubing placed in an insulated casing with a glass or polycarbonate cover.

Evacuated Tube Panels: Evacuated heat pipe tubes (EHPT’s) are composed of multiple evacuated glass tubes each containing an absorber plate fused to a heat pipe. The heat from the hot end of the heat pipes is transferred to the transfer fluid (water or an antifreeze mix—typically propylene glycol) of a domestic hot water or hydronic space heating system in a heat exchanger called a “manifold”. The manifold is wrapped in insulation and covered by a sheet metal or plastic case to protect it from the elements.
The vacuum that surrounds the outside of the tube greatly reduces convection and conduction heat loss to the outside, therefore achieving greater efficiency than flat-plate collectors, especially in colder conditions. This advantage is largely lost in warmer climates, except in those cases where very hot water is desirable, for example commercial process water. The high temperatures that can occur may require special system design to avoid or mitigate overheating conditions

Parabolic Trough Systems:A parabolic trough is a type of solar thermal energy collector. It is constructed as a long parabolic mirror (usually coated silver or polished aluminum) with a Dewar tube running its length at the focal point. Sunlight is reflected by the mirror and concentrated on the Dewar tube. The trough is usually aligned on a north-south axis, and rotated to track the sun as it moves across the sky each day.

Alternatively the trough can be aligned on an east-west axis, this reduces the overall efficiency of the collector, due to cosine loss, but only requires the trough to be aligned with the change in seasons, avoiding the need for tracking motors. This tracking method works correctly at the spring and fall equinoxes with errors in the focusing of the light at other times during the year (the magnitude of this error varies throughout the day, taking a minimum value at solar noon). There is also an error introduced due to the daily motion of the sun across the sky, this error also reaches a minimum at solar noon. Due to these sources of error, seasonally adjusted parabolic troughs are generally designed with a lower solar concentration ratio. In order to increase the level of alignment, some measuring devices have also been invented.[1] Parabolic trough concentrators have a simple geometry, but their concentration is about 1/3 of the theoretical maximum for the same acceptance angle, that is, for the same overall tolerances for the system. Approaching the theoretical maximum may be achieved by using more elaborate concentrators based on primary-secondary designs using nonimaging optics.

Solarbeam Comparison to Other Solar Hot Water Systems