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Comment by adrianwaj | Hacker News Reader

http://www.zenithsolar.com/ looks more advanced - pv and thermal.

What are the efficiency of mirrors these days? I'm sure better mirrors equals more power.

Concentrated solar power (solar thermal) also uses mirrors but in closer range to the water:

http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-generation/renewab... http://www.israel21c.org/environment/siemens-buys-israels-so...

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Zenith Solar is certainly more advanced. Thanks for pointing it out.

The difference between the two projects though is open source vs proprietary. Zenith looks very impressive but Solar Fire is meant to put solar power cheaply and easily into anyone's hands. They are both worth following IMO

Yes I agree, I really like the way Solar Fire's mirrors can be bent.

Have any idea how much a ZenithSolar unit costs? Apparently they've given an Israeli community of 1100 people a surplus of electricity with only 16 units.

No, I don't know, but could investigate. It'd be interesting to see a device that was placed in a location over the course of a year and measured different facets of sun and wind for that location and enabled simulation of various technologies.

Their website says nothing, but they link (http://green-energy-reviews.com/zenith-turns-an-israeli-kibb...) to a video that shows a presentation with a slide of their technology with the text:

5 kWh PV + Thermal -- 30,000 Euros

... and they claim their products will last 20 years.

There will certainly be maintenance costs during that 20 years though.

I do like the idea that as PV efficiencies improve you only have to swap out one cell per dish

Each ZenithSolar Z20 unit generates 5 KWh Electricity plus an additional 11 KWh hot water (up to 100 degrees C). 18 units at Kibbutz Yavne are now providing all the hot water needs for 400 people, the electricity is all be sold into the electric grid. ZenithSolar is now installing new fields in Australia and China...paul.linden@zenithsolar.com

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