Many of us have seen solar power plants of this type, and making primitive versions of these mirror dishes was the goal for some of us, for example this case where a guy used a satellite dish to fix a lot of small mirrors on its surface. Now we see how a mirror dish focuses the solar radiation, and it is obvious that this point will have a high temperature, which can set fire to wood, or blow something up, or melt metal.

A few weeks ago I made this option of a mirror dish which is the cheapest of all possible options. My option does not need a satellite dish, because it is replaced by this concavity in the soil. Now we see how I cover the surface of that concavity with a hard crust which we can see better now.

I remind you that my goal is not entertainment. My goal is to find the best method of converting solar radiation into thermal energy at the lowest cost. My goal is to produce solar thermal energy with temperatures up to 400 ⁰C at a cost of 0.5 cent / kWh, and it is about 10 times cheaper than the cost of heat from natural gas.

Why we should get rid of this metal plate is explained by this formula. Here it requires that cost of solar thermal energy, 0.5 cent / kWh, which is needed to produce very cheap solar electricity that is cheaper than electricity from thermal and nuclear power plants. Here we see that the total cost of our mirror should be 15 USD / sq.m, which is approximately equal to the cost of a metal plate. But we also have to spend money on the glass mirrors, wages for workers, building an earthen berm and other expenses.

However, let's look at how my cheap mirror dish focuses solar radiation. Here we see spots of solar radiation from each of my small mirrors. We also see that the spots of all mirrors are trying to unite at this point, and now I will describe how this solar energy can be turned into cheap electricity.

Now I am showing the 1st option, where a small solar panel is located here.

This is the 2nd option, which suggests that a Stirling engine be located here, and it converts the thermal energy into rotation of an electric generator.

Unfortunately, these two options are not suitable for us because they only produce electricity during the sun, similar to the well-known solar panels. At the same time, we need a solar power plant that will give us electricity 24 hours a day.

Electricity both day and night can be produced by our 3rd option which is used by solar power plants of this type, and now I will quickly remind you how they work. When the sun appears, its radiation heats thermal oil inside these receivers to temperatures of almost 400 ⁰C. This hot oil moves to the center of the solar plant, where its proportion produces steam for a turbine which generates electricity. The rest of the oil comes to such heat storages, where the oil heats huge masses of substance to a temperature of almost 400 ⁰C.

A few hours later, in the evening or at night, that hot substance of the heat storages will produce steam for the same turbine. My old video, 9 months ago, described various types of heat storages, where that hot substance is concrete, sand or other cheap substances. Heating these substances to several hundred degrees allows the storage of thermal energy to generate electricity for several non-solar days in a row. Moreover, a very large heat storage can store thermal energy for several months, to transfer the energy from summer to winter, which was described in this old video 5 months ago.

So, we understand that our mirror dish must also have a relative of this receiver, and now I am showing an example of the receiver we need from another blogger. This receiver heats water for hot water supply, but we understand that it can be heating that thermal oil a few hundred degrees, or it can be these examples with a heating temperature of about 1000 ⁰C.

This is an example receiver for my mirror dish, and my previous videos have shown how it works. But this receiver must be several tens of times smaller than the total area of the mirrors, otherwise its cost will be higher than these requirements.