SHEC

Solar home energy center

This is a new concentrating solar collector design that brings the possibility to building and installing such collectors at home. Now it is possible to use it to build energy-independent homes with minimal cost. In many cases, the cost is so low that it will bring the impression that energy is available for free.

Click on the image on the right to get details about the technology.

If you are interested, this project will help you building one at home before commercial products invade the market. And you will be a pioneer of the next energy revolution. It is possible to do this at different levels, and every level is upgradable to the next one.

1. Just one testing collector, as in the picture. This is completely described in the manual. A single one is not really useful, but it allows you to see whether you can continue.
2. Water heating system. This is classical, exactly as shown in the picture. You will need to build (or partially build partially buy) 3 to 4 collectors, then connect them together to a hot water tank. That's all. The collectors will cost you a few hundred bucks plus your time, and you get much more hot water during the winter than any of the commercial hyper-expensive solar water heaters.

   Put some photovoltaic receivers into your collectors, and you will be generating electricity too, for about 3c/kwh the extra cost. Selling the surplus to the grid makes you a bit of money.

3. Space heating. Just make more collectors, a bigger hot water tank, and you can heat your home with it during the winter. You should use the experience of level 1 to compute how much you can save with this.
4. Pool heating. When the weather starts to warm up, your house no longer needs much heating. The extra energy can be used to heat the pool and allow you to swim in. This level has no extra difficulty.
5. Air conditionning. If you can find absorption air conditionners, you can directly use your home heating collectors to supply energy for the air conditionner. If you live in a hot area, you will be laughing when there is a power cut.
6. High-temperature oil system with glass thermal storage. This is the most powerful and the most advanced. It allows you to do everything: heating, cooling, cooking, round-the-clock electricity generation, vehicle recharging during the night. Reserved for people with advanced skills for the time being.

Forum for this project - Project started by azuredu