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Your focused on moving heat from "Power Plant" to "Home". That's not where/what the OP is talking about. He's talking about installing solar devices to collect

Your focused on moving heat from "Power Plant" to "Home". That's not where/what the OP is talking about. He's talking about installing solar devices to collect heat at the place of business/home and use it there. On-site creation (if you consider using sunlight creation) and consumption. There is nothing stopping the creation of electricity/gas/etc and transporting that over long distances... while ALSO using solar devices at the business/home. Why use electricity to heat water, when you can use the sun? Why run an electric heater when you can use the sun to provide some/all of the heat needed? It's a great idea and he makes a lot of good points. If the engineering can be simplified and brought to the masses

jacquesm 12y ago
You really should have a good look at the material and the devices described in the article. I don't think they lend themselves to decentralized use at all. Solar concentrators are typically massive and are relatively dangerous to operate. Especially if you do two axis concentration (I should know, nearly set my old office on fire with one...).
- willholloway 12y ago
  It is true that typically concentrated solar is industrial scale, operating at high temperature and pressure, but it doesn't have to. A residential scale solar parabolic trough could heat water to 160F to run through baseboard heaters in a hybrid solar/fossil fuel system. It could also easily boil the water and turn it to steam, its all about the size of the trough and the speed water is moved through it. This new material seems like an improvement over the current tech in this type of setup. The advantage of concentrated solar is that it can still generate usable heat on mostly cloudy days, where flat collectors certainly do not.
- rab_oof 12y ago
  Yeap. They're usually out in the desert with a central heating tower at some foci... Much too easy to have an unintentional BBQ party.

jacquesm 12y ago

You really should have a good look at the material and the devices described in the article. I don't think they lend themselves to decentralized use at all. Solar concentrators are typically massive and are relatively dangerous to operate. Especially if you do two axis concentration (I should know, nearly set my old office on fire with one...).

willholloway 12y ago
It is true that typically concentrated solar is industrial scale, operating at high temperature and pressure, but it doesn't have to. A residential scale solar parabolic trough could heat water to 160F to run through baseboard heaters in a hybrid solar/fossil fuel system. It could also easily boil the water and turn it to steam, its all about the size of the trough and the speed water is moved through it. This new material seems like an improvement over the current tech in this type of setup. The advantage of concentrated solar is that it can still generate usable heat on mostly cloudy days, where flat collectors certainly do not.
rab_oof 12y ago
Yeap. They're usually out in the desert with a central heating tower at some foci... Much too easy to have an unintentional BBQ party.