- Martin Winterkorn.
It is such a pity that as a nation we seldom pay much attention to what our research institutions do - and hardly ever provide them with the needed resources to enable them carry out cutting-edge research, which could be commercialised by private sector businesses: and contribute to Ghana's GDP.
Years ago, when it was first announced that U.S.$20 million had been set aside to celebrate the golden jubilee 50th Independence Day anniversary, I wrote an article suggesting that it would benefit the nation more, if the government of President Kufuor gave all the money set aside for the celebrations, to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to fund research work carried out by its various research institutes.
What a difference to our nation's long-term prospects that would have made, if the then government had heeded that humble advice.
It is a pity that Ghanaian politicians are such a hard-of-hearing lot - and that most of them act only if it will benefit them personally.
If only the billions of cedis that was fritted away - on frivolous undertakings, such as ordering dozens of luxury vehicles, and enriching a powerful and well-connected few, through public-purse pre-financing of the construction of luxury homes for sale by private developers - had been ploughed into research, as some of us suggested, what a difference that would have made to the fortunes of our country, today.
And if today we are still unable to resource Ghana's research institutions properly because we are cash-strapped, should we not do some creative thinking instead - and obtain the problem-solving outcomes we seek, by getting our research institutions to collaborate with some of the leading research institutions in the world?
For example, as a result of global climate change, compounded by the destructive activities of illegal loggers, illegal gold miners and illegal sand-winners, our major river systems are drying up.
That should drive the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), to seek a new business model underpinned by energy independence, and which is less dependent on river systems to fill its treatment plants' reservoirs.
Such a business model, should also be devoid of the expense involved in purchasing vast quantities of chemicals that the GWCL currently uses to purify water sourced from increasingly polluted rivers - that frequently dry up because of prolonged dry spells during harmattan seasons: resulting from the extremes in weather brought about by global climate change.
That new GWCL business model should be one that focuses on developing its capacity for implementing small and large-scale solar desalination projects.
At a time when global climate change is impacting Ghana so negatively, relying solely on its traditional production methods, will not enable the GWCL to supply water in sufficient quantities and fulfil its mandate.
As we speak, the latest town in Ghana to experience an acute shortage of treated water, resulting from the drying up of a GWCL treatment plant's reservoir, is Nsawam.
The major river passing through that town - which is famed for its bread-making industry's prowess - the Densu River, has shrunk to such an extent that water from it cannot replenish the reservoir of the GWCL's brand new treatment plant at Nsawam - a facility built with tens of millions of dollars of borrowed money.
Global climate change has also led to a decrease in stored water volumes in Ghana's hydro-power dams - lowering water levels to such an extent that all the nation's hydro-power plants operate far below capacity during dry seasons.
Again, some of us predicted that scenario years ago - and suggested in countless articles that instead of building a hydro-power plant that would never function at full capacity because of low dam water levels, the Kufuor administration should rather use the money to build a thermal power plant instead. It was ignored, sadly. Pity.
Above all, there is also a desperate need to increase the share of renewable energy in our nation's power-generation mix.
We could solve many of the problems enumerated above, creatively, by simply getting the relevant research institutes of the CSIR, as well as the Volta River Authority (VRA), the GWCL and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), to collaborate with IBM Research and Airlight Energy's Dsolar, both of which would welcome such collaboration, I am sure.
After all, Ghana would become the proving ground for the Sunflower High Concentration PhotoVoltiac Thermal (HCPVT) system, would it not?
Such collaboration will enable Ghana to adopt the Sunflower HCPVT system, to power the sustainable development of marginalised communities across the country.
It is the perfect solution to the vexing problem of dumsor power outages - for it will give off-grid energy independence to countless rural communities, hospitals, educational institutions, hotels, sundry businesses, etc., etc. - all of which could also get free air-conditioning from what is a renewable energy source.
For the benefit of readers, I have culled an article from the IBM Research website, about the IBM Research and Airlight Energy Sunflower High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal system, that in my humble view, our nation would be prudent to adopt - to provide off-grid renewable power for the sustainable development of rural Ghana.
Speaking personally, if all my family's farms had one Sunflower HCPVT system each, for example, I know the difference that having water for drip-irrigation year round would make to their production levels - as post-harvest losses would be completely eliminated if we built mini-warehouses, to store harvested produce: into which cooled air could be channelled. Brilliant.
Finally, the Sunflower HCPVT system could also provide solar-powered air-conditioning for countless buildings in towns and cities across Ghana too. Perfect.
This is just the sort of innovative, high-impact project that Ghana's first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, favoured. He would doubtless have approached IBM Research and Airlight Energy, were he to be in power today, and asked them to replicate it in Ghana, in collaboration with the CSIR's relevant research institutes.
One therefore hopes that the presidential candidate of today's Convention People's Party (CPP), Ivor Greenstreet, will promise to do so too, should he become President in January 2017 - as he campaigns for this November's presidential election across the nation.
Please read on:
"Airlight Energy brings solar electricity and heat to remote locations
System concentrates the sun's radiation 2,000 times using water-cooled photovoltaic chips
Top story
English | Italian | German | Japanese
Biasca, 24 September 2014—Airlight Energy, a Swiss-based supplier of solar power technology has partnered with IBM Research to bring affordable solar technology to the market by 2017. The system can concentrate the sun’s radiation 2,000 times and convert 80 percent of it into useful energy to generate 12 kilowatts of electrical power and 20 kilowatts of heat on a sunny day—enough to power several average homes.
The
High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system, which
resembles a 10-meter-high sunflower a 40-square-meter parabolic
dish made of patented fiber-based concrete, which can be molded into
nearly any shape in less than four hours and has mechanical
characteristics similar to those of aluminum at one-fifth the cost.
The inside of the parabolic dish is covered with 36 elliptic mirrors made of 0.2-millimeter-thin recyclable plastic foil with a silver coating, slightly thicker than the wrapper chocolate bars are packaged in, which are then curved using a slight vacuum. The mirrored surface area concentrates the sun’s radiation by reflecting it onto several microchannel liquid-cooled receivers, each of which is populated with a dense array of multi-junction photovoltaic chips—each 1×1-cm2 chip produces an electrical power of up to 57 watts on a typical sunny day. The mirrors and the receiver are encased with a large inflated transparent plastic enclosure to protect them from rain or dust. The enclosure also prevents birds and other animals from getting in harm's way.
The photovoltaic chips, similar to those used on orbiting satellites, are mounted on micro-structured layers that pipe treated water within fractions of millimeters of the chip to absorb the heat and draw it away 10 times more effectively than with passive air cooling. The 85-90 Celsius (°C) (183-194 Fahrenheit (°F)) hot water maintains the chips at safe operating temperatures of 105 °C (221 °F), which otherwise would reach over 1,500 °C (2,732 °F). The entire system sits on an advanced sun tracking system, which positions the dish at the best angle throughout the day to capture the sun's rays.
The direct hot-water cooling design with very small pumping power has already been made commercially available by IBM in its high-performance computers, including SuperMUC, Europe’s fastest supercomputer in 2012.
“The direct cooling technology with very small pumping power used to cool the photovoltaic chips with water is inspired by the hierarchical branched blood supply system of the human body,” said Dr. Bruno Michel, manager, advanced thermal packaging at IBM Research.
An initial demonstrator of the multi-chip solar receiver was developed in a previous collaboration between IBM and the Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center.
With such a high concentration and based on its radical design, researchers believe that with high-volume production they can achieve a cost of two to three times lower than comparable systems.
Airlight Energy has spun off a new company called Dsolar (dish solar) to market, license and sell the HCPVT system globally. Dsolar has licensed several patents from IBM in the area of hot-water chip cooling.
“With the HCPVT we are ushering in a new generation of solar energy technology,” said Dr. Gianluca Ambrosetti, Head of Research, Airlight Energy with responsibilities for building the new spinoff. “Not only is the system affordable, but it will create jobs where it is installed because many of the materials will be sourced locally. We expect to partner with firms around the world to bring a commercial version to market by 2017.”
Based on its current design, scientists estimate that the operating lifetime for the HCPVT structure is up to 60 years with proper maintenance. The protective foil and the plastic elliptic mirrors will need to be replaced every 10–15 years depending on the environment, and the photovoltaic cells need replacing every 25 years. Throughout its lifetime the system will benefit from design and manufacturing improvements, allowing for an even greater system efficiency.
The HCPVT system can also be customized with further equipment to provide drinkable water and air conditioning from its hot water output. For example, salt water can pass through a porous membrane distillation system, where it is vaporized and desalinated. Such a system could provide 30–40 liters of drinkable water per square meter of receiver area per day, while still generating electricity with a more than 25 percent yield or two kilowatt hours per day—a little less than half the amount of water the average person needs per day according to the United Nations, whereas a large multi-dish installation could provide enough water for a town.
By means of a thermally driven sorption chiller, cool air can also be produced. A sorption chiller is a device that converts heat into cooling via a thermal cycle applied to a liquid or solid sorption material. Adsorption chillers, with solid silica gel adsorbers and with water as a working fluid, can replace compression chillers, which place a burden on electrical grids in hot climates and contain working fluids that are harmful to the ozone layer. Although absorption (liquid sorption) systems are already available for combination with the HCPVT system, they provide less cooling output compared to low-temperature driving heat for the adsorption (solid sorption) systems under development at IBM. The systems can also be customized with a transparent back for urban installations.
Initial HCPVT systems will be made available with non-optimized predecessor distillation and sorption cooling systems. Systems with optimized desalination and sorption cooling technologies require an additional two to three years of development with additional partner companies.
Airlight Energy and the IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) will team up to donate a High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system to two deserving communities. Each winning community will receive a prototype HCPVT system from Airlight Energy, and be eligible for pro bono enablement and transformation support from IBM Corporate Service Corps. Applications from communities will be open in 2015 and the winners will be announced in December 2015, with installations beginning in late 2016.
Scientists at Airlight and IBM envision the HCPVT system providing sustainable energy to locations around the world including southern Europe, Africa, the Arabian peninsula, the southwestern part of North America, South America, Japan and Australia. In addition to residences, additional applications include remote hospitals, medical facilities, hotels and resorts, shopping centers and locations where available land is at a premium.
Some of the initial funding for the development of the HCPVT system was provided to IBM Research, Airlight Energy, ETH Zurich and the Interstate University of Applied Sciences Buchs NTB in a three-year grant from the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation.
Join the conversation with scientists on Twitter @IBMResearch, @AirlightEnergy, #HCPVT, #dsolar and #bmiBruno.
About AIRLIGHT ENERGY
AIRLIGHT ENERGY is a private Swiss company based in Biasca that supplies proprietary technology for large-scale production of electricity using solar power and for energy storage. AIRLIGHT ENERGY has developed an innovative and complete solution for the markets of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)."
End of culled article from the IBM Research website.
Biasca, 24 September 2014—Airlight Energy, a Swiss-based supplier of solar power technology has partnered with IBM Research to bring affordable solar technology to the market by 2017. The system can concentrate the sun’s radiation 2,000 times and convert 80 percent of it into useful energy to generate 12 kilowatts of electrical power and 20 kilowatts of heat on a sunny day—enough to power several average homes.
The
High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system, which
resembles a 10-meter-high sunflower a 40-square-meter parabolic
dish made of patented fiber-based concrete, which can be molded into
nearly any shape in less than four hours and has mechanical
characteristics similar to those of aluminum at one-fifth the cost.The inside of the parabolic dish is covered with 36 elliptic mirrors made of 0.2-millimeter-thin recyclable plastic foil with a silver coating, slightly thicker than the wrapper chocolate bars are packaged in, which are then curved using a slight vacuum. The mirrored surface area concentrates the sun’s radiation by reflecting it onto several microchannel liquid-cooled receivers, each of which is populated with a dense array of multi-junction photovoltaic chips—each 1×1-cm2 chip produces an electrical power of up to 57 watts on a typical sunny day. The mirrors and the receiver are encased with a large inflated transparent plastic enclosure to protect them from rain or dust. The enclosure also prevents birds and other animals from getting in harm's way.
The photovoltaic chips, similar to those used on orbiting satellites, are mounted on micro-structured layers that pipe treated water within fractions of millimeters of the chip to absorb the heat and draw it away 10 times more effectively than with passive air cooling. The 85-90 Celsius (°C) (183-194 Fahrenheit (°F)) hot water maintains the chips at safe operating temperatures of 105 °C (221 °F), which otherwise would reach over 1,500 °C (2,732 °F). The entire system sits on an advanced sun tracking system, which positions the dish at the best angle throughout the day to capture the sun's rays.
The direct hot-water cooling design with very small pumping power has already been made commercially available by IBM in its high-performance computers, including SuperMUC, Europe’s fastest supercomputer in 2012.
“The direct cooling technology with very small pumping power used to cool the photovoltaic chips with water is inspired by the hierarchical branched blood supply system of the human body,” said Dr. Bruno Michel, manager, advanced thermal packaging at IBM Research.
An initial demonstrator of the multi-chip solar receiver was developed in a previous collaboration between IBM and the Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center.
With such a high concentration and based on its radical design, researchers believe that with high-volume production they can achieve a cost of two to three times lower than comparable systems.
Airlight Energy has spun off a new company called Dsolar (dish solar) to market, license and sell the HCPVT system globally. Dsolar has licensed several patents from IBM in the area of hot-water chip cooling.
“With the HCPVT we are ushering in a new generation of solar energy technology,” said Dr. Gianluca Ambrosetti, Head of Research, Airlight Energy with responsibilities for building the new spinoff. “Not only is the system affordable, but it will create jobs where it is installed because many of the materials will be sourced locally. We expect to partner with firms around the world to bring a commercial version to market by 2017.”
Based on its current design, scientists estimate that the operating lifetime for the HCPVT structure is up to 60 years with proper maintenance. The protective foil and the plastic elliptic mirrors will need to be replaced every 10–15 years depending on the environment, and the photovoltaic cells need replacing every 25 years. Throughout its lifetime the system will benefit from design and manufacturing improvements, allowing for an even greater system efficiency.
The HCPVT system can also be customized with further equipment to provide drinkable water and air conditioning from its hot water output. For example, salt water can pass through a porous membrane distillation system, where it is vaporized and desalinated. Such a system could provide 30–40 liters of drinkable water per square meter of receiver area per day, while still generating electricity with a more than 25 percent yield or two kilowatt hours per day—a little less than half the amount of water the average person needs per day according to the United Nations, whereas a large multi-dish installation could provide enough water for a town.
By means of a thermally driven sorption chiller, cool air can also be produced. A sorption chiller is a device that converts heat into cooling via a thermal cycle applied to a liquid or solid sorption material. Adsorption chillers, with solid silica gel adsorbers and with water as a working fluid, can replace compression chillers, which place a burden on electrical grids in hot climates and contain working fluids that are harmful to the ozone layer. Although absorption (liquid sorption) systems are already available for combination with the HCPVT system, they provide less cooling output compared to low-temperature driving heat for the adsorption (solid sorption) systems under development at IBM. The systems can also be customized with a transparent back for urban installations.
Initial HCPVT systems will be made available with non-optimized predecessor distillation and sorption cooling systems. Systems with optimized desalination and sorption cooling technologies require an additional two to three years of development with additional partner companies.
Airlight Energy and the IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) will team up to donate a High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system to two deserving communities. Each winning community will receive a prototype HCPVT system from Airlight Energy, and be eligible for pro bono enablement and transformation support from IBM Corporate Service Corps. Applications from communities will be open in 2015 and the winners will be announced in December 2015, with installations beginning in late 2016.
Scientists at Airlight and IBM envision the HCPVT system providing sustainable energy to locations around the world including southern Europe, Africa, the Arabian peninsula, the southwestern part of North America, South America, Japan and Australia. In addition to residences, additional applications include remote hospitals, medical facilities, hotels and resorts, shopping centers and locations where available land is at a premium.
Some of the initial funding for the development of the HCPVT system was provided to IBM Research, Airlight Energy, ETH Zurich and the Interstate University of Applied Sciences Buchs NTB in a three-year grant from the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation.
Join the conversation with scientists on Twitter @IBMResearch, @AirlightEnergy, #HCPVT, #dsolar and #bmiBruno.
About AIRLIGHT ENERGY
AIRLIGHT ENERGY is a private Swiss company based in Biasca that supplies proprietary technology for large-scale production of electricity using solar power and for energy storage. AIRLIGHT ENERGY has developed an innovative and complete solution for the markets of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)."
End of culled article from the IBM Research website.
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