ANU ’ s new 500 m 2 paraboloidal dish solar

The Australian National University (ANU) has worked for many years on paraboloidal dish solar concentrators and demonstrated a 400m system in 1994. The commercialization of this technology has involved a re-design of the Big Dish concept for mass production. The new design is a 494 m2 concentrator with 13.4 m focal length and altitude-azimuth tracking. It uses 380 identical spherical 1.17m × 1.17 m mirror panels, which incorporate the Glass-on-Metal Laminate mirrors. Construction of a first prototype on the ANU campus began in the first quarter of 2008. The first on sun test was carried out on 29 June 2009. INTRODUCTION The way that modern society meets its energy needs is undergoing rapid change. The main driver for this change is the almost universal recognition that greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels are beginning to have major impacts on the earths climate systems. Global agreements to reduce emissions and corresponding actions in Australia are now seen as inevitable and essential. In addition to this, there is a consensus amongst industry players that oil, the single most important fossil energy source for the world economy, has reached the point where demand is likely to exceed supply and consequently costs will continue to rise and use-age must ultimately decline in coming decades as reserves are consumed. This paper describes a unique dish solar concentrator that has been designed to play a role in future sustainable energy supply. It is the third “Big Dish” (Figure 1) concentrator produced by ANU and has been completely re-designed for cost effective manufacture in a commercial context. In this context a light weight structure is an essential need for cost effectiveness and sustainability. The new dish is the biggest of its type in the world and has an aperture area of approximately 500m. Fig. 1. The existing SG3 400m2 dish (left) and a CAD image of the new 500m2 SG4 dish at approximately the same scale. LSAA 2009 Conference Technology & Sustainability Applications Paper S6A