A new way to turn the sun’s power into energy | The Edge

Remember when you were a kid and burnt things with just the sun and a magnifying glass? Well that’s the simple premise behind HELIOVIS. This Austrian start-up has designed and developed solar concentration systems to create energy. The innovative system is also inflatable so it can be set-up anywhere. Farhad Shikhaliyev, business development manager at HELIOVIS explains to ‘The Edge’ how it all works.
HELIOVIS featured in the episode, ‘The Edge: Energy Expo’ in which CNBC travelled to Astana, Kazakhstan to explore the ‘Future Energy’ Astana Expo 2017.
Special thanks to:
Astana Expo 2017
HELIOVIS
Subscribe to CNBC Life: cnb.cx/2wAkfMv
Subscribe to CNBC International: cnb.cx/2gft82z
Like our Facebook page
/ cnbcinternational
Follow us on Instagram
/ cnbcinternational
Follow us on Twitter
/ cnbci

[@patriot9455]

Rocky Ford, Colorado, USA, has a working unit of heat generation that they built in the median of a highway outside of town. It uses a liquified sulphur heat transfer system to heat a boiler that runs a steam generator. It is a closed system on the heat generating side as well as on the steam boiler. The station is fully enclosed and over 10 miles from town.

[@user-ec2kd8sz3t]

I like this lady's interviewing technique. Seems elegantly simple, just listen thoughtfully while nodding your head and then when the person you're interviewing stops talking repeat the last few words he said and wait for him to say something else. Brilliant.

[@patriot9455]

There is a city in Colorado that uses a heat gathering system to generate electricity. It works well enough that they are fully self powered and have paid for the cost of the system by selling power to other cities.

[@shailendrarae2159]

I am from India, when I was just 14, I noticed that my mother used a box like contraption, coated black on the inside with something & had a funny glass like adjustable lid. It was called the "Solar Cooker". She would mix up the spices, vegetables or meat & ghee put it in a special container. Then she would do the same with rice, lentils or beans. Cover the containers, put them in this box like thing, adjust the glass lid at an angle & wait. In about an hours time the meal would be ready, a little longer in winters. This gave my family to have more time together. The food tasted just as good as if it was prepared in the traditional manner. This technology was being used in India way way back. I am 63 now & still many households use the "Solar Cooker" even today.

[@maintoc]

That's good to hear. For some years, I've been a supporter of this, especially for countries where, otherwise, women (it's usually women) have to walk for miles to collect wood for cooking fires. Please see: 1) www.solarcookers.org/index.php and 2) solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/CooKit Thank you.

[@ABaumstumpf]

tinkering together one is on my list of little projects to do but here it is just a gimmick if you have one. But In less wealthy countries this thing really is Great.

[@konstantinbodin9936]

Friend im from Serbia and my olds was making food by the sun in sumer they didnt use glas just metal like aluminium and iron that cooker we use today days in our ovens just without aluminium siler (today foil) in that tays they learn that from their parents and they loved bread from baked on sun. So sun energy isnd nothin new. Only new in alternative energy is needle like wind plants in UA Emirates. Wind turbine int new ppl use it centris ago they just make it modern, wather plants ppl also used in my vilage they stil use it like old tradition. But dams are modern versions. New is wave turbines... (les power) new from sun are photo cels other is modernisation of something old... greek used lwns and mirors too... so its nothing new ther just words...:) romans got wather heaters and coolers and air condisions first and we need to open windows and dors until recently... so there is low level of new things.

[@jasoncougar194]

Of course india invinted it a long time ago. Hell the us stole the tech for the F35 from india and Russia stole the tech for the s400 and s500 from india.

[@rahulchandra2164]

he say 'used in india by his mother' not 'invinted by indians'. so pls read first...

[@briangman3]

Fantastic! I was evaluating this concept back in 2000 and I am glad to see it is making some headway. Inflatable mirrors are by far the cheapest because you reduce the large costs on mirrors. Main downside is it is resistance to windy locations. It will work well for sure. The balloon around the mirror keeps dust off the mirror but cuts down on light efficiency slightly. So Nice to see it working!

[@ABaumstumpf]

Or things like a bird or anything else puncturing the tube. The problem with temperature affecting the geometry, and other things. It can be a good cheap solution for some applications, but i am concerned about the longevity of this.

[@gary.richardson]

I agree! I think wind issues can be addressed similar to how poly greenhouses deal with that.

[@gary.richardson]

@@ABaumstumpf not any different than poly greenhouses. No issues with birds puncturing through worth worrying about. Especially poly films guaranteed for 10 years that can withstand UV degradation and 100+mph winds. Some of the designs give away for large flying objects but reattach.

[@SuperFredAZ]

the Spanish company Abengoa has built many multi megawatt plants all over the world, several years ago, using thermal heat from the sun.

[@honestinsky]

Excellent video, thanks for posting, much appreciated. New sub : )

[@GSImproved90]

Awesome! Just waiting for the roof shingle version before I buy.

[@theoriginalmakaaka101]

My brother did this for University and in Australia they have a large scale power plant. I always called these a solar furnace - unless I'm misunderstanding something. Basically my brother had an array of 50 mirrors and he was boiling a trash can full of water. As for the large scale power-plant in Australia, they have a pipe of water that they heat and use that steam to spin turbines. Some people also do this with black aluminum pipes where the sun's heat is absorbed into the black aluminum and then the hot air is used to heat houses. The large bag/tank looks like it would be expensive to fix - I wonder how it deals with Hail stones.

[@nyiesah]

I was going to make a sick burn about Archimedes but it's actually kind of cool what they're doing I particularly liked the use of refrigerant

[@American-In-Mykolaiv]

The largest solar furnace is at Odeillo in the Pyrénées-Orientales in France, opened in 1970. It employs an array of plane mirrors to gather sunlight, reflecting it onto a larger curved mirror. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace

[@fmayer1507]

This is awsome! This is the kind of technology we need to pursue.

[@gerasimosmelissaratos6058]

I remember something similar running in Spain a few years ago, so although it's definitely nifty, classifying it as new is a bit too much.

[@undertheradar4645]

"this thermal energy can be turned into electricity?" Is that a serious question?

[@Yeet42069]

I know right, like did you finish school before you even became a journalist? If you ask something that stupid you really didn't understand much.

[@lovedalejoyana9785]

This is glorious, been searching for "how can we make electricity" for a while now, and I think this has helped. Have you heard people talk about - Diyadison Penhloe Blaster - (just google it ) ? It is an awesome one off product for generating your own electricity minus the normal expense. Ive heard some extraordinary things about it and my co-worker got cool results with it.

[@wlicksilly]

He said it could go straight to turbine. I don't understand why we are still using fossil fuels.

[@gary.richardson]

I see some people don't quite get it. I admit that I'm a more visual person and the video did not demonstrate significance in cost. Cost advantage was only briefly mentioned during the video and could have been easily missed. People learn in different ways and diverting their attention more toward cost of manufacture needs to be done.

[@ruftime]

Thought this looked familiar! GoSun is a brand portable solar food cookers that use this technology quite remarkably.

[@WhatDadIsUpTo]

You reinvented the wheel- WOW!

[@pixelum2023]

It's the title that's misleading, probably on purpose (click bait). The man in the video even says so about right in the middle.

[@user-eu2vq4vq8f]

Great job guys

[@th1alb]

Wow, I'm surprised nobody thought of this new way until 2017! CNBC is clearly at the forefront of new technologies being invented, I'm impressed!

[@camelhaydrogno7696]

منذ اكثر من مئه وعشرين كانت وجربها الألمان وكانت سببا في كارثه

[@kiveynen]

Finally.. i've been thinking for years now why noone ever build a giant solar-laser to generate energy. Glad it's happening at last. :)

[@DreadedEnigma]

If you want to make a feasible thermal device that utilizes sunlight you have to think multidimensional in terms of energy input, energy stabilization, energy distribution and energy storage. The system you're building has to function in conjunction with other natural forces to have a consistent energy output and a way to store excess energy.

[@nishadburhan]

Wow, people are really awesome.

[@Buzzhumma]

Combine this with hyper loop transport technology and you have all the positive. A total win win !

[@justkiddin1980]

Interesting... but does it also work when its cloudy?? I think traditional solar panels also produce when its cloudy...

[@Herbert04]

How much power will that put out? I look at the size and that is fine. But tell me what it will do.

[@konsul2006]

It does have a rather large footprint... But that is also true for a big scale solar reflector farm. One benefit I see is that you won't have birds killed by a solar death-ray :)

[@cherylm2C6671]

Thank you for your comment. Soft photovoltaic tubes can be bird-meshed, which may also be enough for more urban installations, especially in earthquake country. I'll look for info.

[@bernardevans1703]

Wow!!! Awesome, is this scaleable

[@fitrianhidayat]

The guy literally said the technology isn't new, and the comments section is full of people saying this isn't new technology...

[@filosquartapecore]

I'm a bit skeptical about this. I did a quick calculation and i don't think this contraption can generate enough energy to be considered useful. Assuming the hoops are 8m diameter, spaced 9 meters each and there are 18 hoops, that makes up for a rectangular area of (18-1)x9x8 = 1224 m^2. Make it 1500 m^2. On average, in a sunny location, the radiant energy input is 200W per square meter. Again, make it 250 for an optimistic estimate. The total energy input for the device is 1500*250=375000W = 375KW. The amount of energy required to evaporate 1Kg of water (at 1 atm) is 2256.4 KJ, so with this power input, assuming 100% efficiency, the entire rack produces 375/2256.4 = 0.166 Kg of water per second (quite not enough for driving even a small turbine)

[@tarun1792]

Basically large solar cookers

[@russelldunning1584]

Tarun kaushik Tk A solar heating tube... just really big.

[@gary.richardson]

At walmart prices.

[@subhajitsamanta2914]

traditional way for multiplying solar power to A considerable level.👍

[@asteptowomanenpowerment2011]

Good idea but What will happened when dust particals cover the lance. This is the major problem we are facing in solar energy. Pls elaborate. Thanks

[@camelhaydrogno7696]

لاتتغطى يمكن رشها بوليش مصنوعة بالنانوا تتزحلق ذرات الغبار ذاتيا

[@TechnoGlobalist]

i think the idea is to use a cheapo mirror technology, might be not that bad

[@-Mithunkokare]

Hi , i want details about this project, can anyone provide me details?

[@explorelife-dr.gajendrarat2508]

In India we are already using it for cooking food at shirdi temple.

[@smb123211]

Why do folks feel compelled to post negative comments about great things like this? And why care if CNBC produces interesting videos for free? It's not like their demanding payment or forcing you to watch. What's revolutionary about this is not the technique but the portability, applications and concentrated power. Yes, we can cook a meal or light a fire or do lots of crazy things with a magnifying glass but providing power for industrial and commercial uses on a grand scale? The biggest applications are desalination plants and solar thermal power plants leading to the cheapest electricity in the world. Posters may "know" this is "nothing new" but firms from China, Saudi Arabia, Spain, etc disagree. What's telling (and sad) is that all this innovation is occurring outside the US where green lobbies have successfully prevented the building of small, solar-powered desalination plants for various reasons ("it wouldn't help" "too expensive" "We can solve the problem with conservation")

[@illam11]

What is the current update

[@simonwarui8226]

You guys, can you come up with a cheaper way of storing this energy to be used for instance at night or during peak days? Storing energy could be the hardest part.

[@camelhaydrogno7696]

بسيطة الملح

[@jeffchilds8050]

Sandia Labs had a parabolic trough back in the early 1970's.

[@rationalmale9216]

that system can be engineered with 80-90-% less mental in the system that holds the lenses saving more money and using less space.

[@Jibbie49]

At 1:36 he says that they have engineered technology that has been around for some time, just making it more efficient.

[@melangreathouse2209]

LOVE this New Technology! If they ever DO get it to market, and it takes hold, I would be a player for it, 65%cheaper than the current rate is NO laughing matter!

[@DELHIBOMBAYDARBAR]

Mela'n. Please Google search Deferred Atkinson Cycle engine. See what can you do.

[@Ferelmakina]

How is it better than traditional Cilinder-parabolic CSP plants?

[@JbtSveZauzeto1]

When was this new? A few decades ago?

[@ElazarusWills]

A new engineering spin on basic solar thermal ideas. Great! The more the merrier.

[@vladnickul]

YEP. it is new since 1960. invest in it, is not like the de top brass in there will basicly scam you for a six figure salary and let the company go bankrupt.

[@altha-rf1et]

could get the panels of from about 20 of them big screen TV that everybody is throwing out and do the same

[@choongzhenyang9724]

Can someone explain how it work?

[@mazzamquanta3962]

I think base on size this version is better since solar concentration technology that uses flat parabolic mirror really eat up space. probably maintenance cost can be cut down. an innovative way of thinking. I amazed

[@warbluedragon]

Keeping heat down means no more birds catching ablaze

[@michaelcampbell5567]

This is very old tech. A high tech version of this was on the roof of the IL agriculture building in the 90s.

[@niceguyny1]

Michael Campbell j

[@russelldunning1584]

They were on the roofs of many buildings in the 1990's... abouts the time when the esteemed Homer J Simpson said solar was a pipedream... they were used for heating. --- Well, at the least, they pretty damn similar to the contraption in the video.

[@bryanm6762]

Michael Campbell yes the guy literally says that in the video.... He re-engineered it to make it cheaper

[@kaikart123]

Bryan M re-engineered? You just need a steam generator, water, metal pipes and parabolic mirrors to do this. There is nothing else to be re-engineered.

[@gary.richardson]

@@kaikart123 reengineered to a lower manufacturing cost can still be reengineered. Engineers look at 3 things function, form, and cost. Or alternatively, cost, speed, and quality. Not only from a product perspective but also a manufacturability point of view.

[@Barskor1]

Such concepts can do desalinization with no ultra expensive pumps and reverse osmosis filters and can produce electricity rather than consume it.

[@waytoomuchtimeonmyhands]

Waiting for their segment on some guy inventing the wheel.

[@akashvengurlekar9671]

This idea of intensifying sun rays to generate heat is already in application in Shirdi Sai Baba Mandir in India for cooking food. It was also documented by Discovery Channel in mega Kitchen India.

[@sulaimanalkhateeb8408]

what's the name of the company??????

[@funny-video-YouTube-channel]

*Solar panels are winning,* because people can use them on their house. This system will be only useful to investors who can build expensive operations.

[@terryturner3050]

epSos.de longevity and maintenance plays a big game

[@MsSomeonenew]

It would be very useful even for houses if you have the space, apparently most of the power used in homes is usually put toward heating.

[@lylestavast7652]

heating or cooling, depending on season and locale...

[@gary.richardson]

I think this may be scaled down some. At current scale, apartment units, small scale greenhouse operations, and a few other ideas come to mind. I would need to see how much different this tech may be to existing trough technology to elaborate more.

[@JoeBlac]

Is there a chance the track could bend?

[@hardikpatel3709]

Good

[@Varunkm110]

Dude can you be more specific how much voltage and current you can supply for steel plant per day

[@iamthetinkerman]

Wow, I had this in my head as an idea of making use of the suns energy more efficiently, now i'm watching this!!! WTH!

[@nattsurfaren]

After reading some more and mailing various scientists we concluded that the whole construction must rotate 2000 RPM in order for the heat transfer to accumulate to a stable plasma that can be converted into electricity. Can anyone confirm this? If this is the case then wouldn't the vibrations from the spin cause the ground to become unstable and shift the construction which in turn would prevent the sun from reaching the heat receiver?

[@rncd999]

We tried spinning it at that speed and it just flies into space, so for now we just track the sun with it :)

[@heitor479]

Put a plastic case around the trough: increase the costs: name it as a startup: success!

[@Bryanboi100]

Why not use this as a hyperloop as well??

[@jeremytheimer7443]

It is not a new way to make usable energy. In 1901 someone made a steam engine that used a parabolic dish to concentrate the sunlight. It got a lot of interest but when coal prices went down nobody cared about it.

[@danmyself5341]

cost per watt???

[@nikolatesla5553]

This is essentially a giant evacuated solar tube. Lots of people heat their hot water with the small 2 in solar tubes.

[@peoplsrepublcOcali]

I am wearing a suit right now in a fancy building in Switzerland and I have some 1920's technology here....etc. LOL. Were do I sign up? Maybe if you had a nicer suit or if you were in Tahiti the product could be an even newer way.

[@rncd999]

Well the technology is actually from 1912 and this was filmed last year at the EXPO 2017 in Astana. You really like my suit? :D

[@peoplsrepublcOcali]

Your suit is the bee's knees and your product is awesome. I guess that isn't your building so I apologize for that. I suppose everything from 1912 is "new" to cnbc, but kudos to you for bringing the actual date to light.

[@tmckmusic8584]

This must be how the gosun solar oven works.😊

[@scottbros6368]

Where are the measured results from the prototype?

[@worldpeace1822]

So funny that the reporter is able to explain that thing better than the sales rep or engineer...

[@kestane313]

I sent an email to company, called many times but nobody replies. I searched information on internet and i found that 26 people are working in the company. They need a Secretary!!! The guy in the video says that 55 percent cheaper, soooo how much 1 Mw system costs? Even in the website no detailed info.

[@gary.richardson]

One of their staff did reply in the comments here.

[@gunplow]

Make a thermal wind chimney

[@kayrosis5523]

I don't think that this will scale to 100s of mwh but if they can make it cheap enough, it might be a good niche product

[@baneblackguard584]

it will. using solar to turn water into steam is a scalable design. as long as you have the space to build it, you can keep scaling it up.

[@dailydoseofhumor628]

Wait till when there’s a rainy day 😂😂

[@shelbyseelbach9568]

You don't have to turn the sun's power into energy. That's why it's called power, it's already energy.

[@Doppekidd88]

Now make this a motor for a vehicle and you could reach speed of light since magnifying light makes it even hotter and thus making the motor power faster as it heats up sounds crazy I know

[@benitocamelo4143]

People explaining this was old technology obviously did not see the video where the guy said it is not new technology but are using it to create smart technology. Do people just read titles of videos and go straight to the comments?

[@rayinri]

thank u for all the teachers who destroyed my physics and chemistry

[@louf7178]

It is typically referred to as the sun's energy. Power is the time rate of energy. The media getting off to the wrong start again.

[@hhjames9139]

Got a lot of unknown geniuses here.

[@ohbobpleez]

I saw an advertisment in a 1950's magazine that cooked food using parabolic mirrors. Where is the new Technology?

[@ruforufo2185]

exactly. parabolic reflectors have been around for very long time. what i find annoying is these guys think us half-wits wont know any better

[@timmurphy5541]

The innovation is that they can produce the mirrors and tube roll-to-roll which makes the whole thing cheap. Apparently it also takes less water to clean them which is a big issue for solar collectors in hot and dry countries.

[@iamthetinkerman]

the point is to have the steam power a turbine which in turn powers a generator to produce more electricity than a PV solar cell you idiot! This is clearly way out of your depth to even understand this!

[@evil001987]

1:25 "This technology is nothing new, its been around since the beginning of the century" The video never claims it is new.

[@user-gj7nd7rb4v]

you get the comment award

[@tomkelly8827]

This is a very good idea. On a very large scale it will make a lot of sense. The dairy and industrial uses are interesting as well. The problem I have with this type of technology is that it requires a tracking system. Lots of moving parts that will break down. Tracking does vastly improve efficiency but it requires more maintenance as well. This system is ideal for terraforming earth. Turning deserts into oaises. I imagine an ocean water pipeline running inland to a desert in any continent. A large array of these would either distill or make electricity to do reverse osmosis to make plenty of fresh water from the ocean. The sea salt can be harvested and minerals can be mined from the sea water to help to pay for this system. We have a great planet here. Let's practice making an uninhabitable places on earth habitable so that we will be really good at making a planet habitable. Then we will perhaps be up for the challenge of Mars or the moon. They have a whole lot of challenges though

[@cameofinance7793]

erm... solar cooling, preheating steel. Real convincing lmao

[@warthog733]

No captions, no watch. KZbin's computer generated CC are one hell of a lot better than no captions at all.

[@corthew]

Warthog cell caption U2 comutator are one elephant matters than no caption at all.

[@zenzen9131]

A mirror with a circular cross-section, as shown here, will not focus the sun's rays to a single point. It has to be parabolic to do this.

[@NotN8]

Don't they have something similar in the Arizona desert that concentrate sunlight to run Sterling engine generators?

[@lylestavast7652]

I don't think there's a commercial grade concentrated solar to Stirling engine system in the US, but could be wrong. Solana is maybe the plant you're talking about in AZ - it's rows of parabolic troughs, not sure how they're converting it at the generation - it is a molten salt solution type medium. ( There have been test installations of parabolic dish with a Stirling engine at the focus in test beds near Los Alamos NM before though.)

[@emmanuelr710]

How efficient

[@gary.richardson]

If you are going to distill Fukushima water, this will do it for less cost than many other methods.

[@Elliandr]

Looks like this might solve the dead bird problem solar has.

[@MsSomeonenew]

Well at least he was honest about it being old tech repackaged. No idea how this could be 55% cheaper then a mere trough mirror, but if that is a legitimate claim then by all means get these things going.

[@ABaumstumpf]

i think that might very well be true. Having a cheap inflatable plastic tube certainly will be a lot cheaper than having precise mirrors. It will also reduce the efficiency a bit, but that doesn't matter all that much. The big downsides will be reliability and longevity - this will take a serious beating in rough weather and if a tube gets punctured its over.

[@baneblackguard584]

no he said it was smarter tech, not new tech.

[@gary.richardson]

Glass has high energy costs to manufacture and is a slower process that also add cost to scaling up. A plastic film at the right mil thickness and formulation will have a better cost benefit ratio. And, last long enough. I have seen 10 year greenhouse plastic that changed my mind about which way I want to go. A lot of people get rid of their cars in less than 10 years. The concern is how much must they sell and at what price point per year to stay in business.

[@michaelmuturi12]

yes...we can use giant magnifying glass to heat steel, how genius of you

[@rncd999]

Hi Michael, I said pre-heat ;)

[@ytSuns26]

The interviewer seems completely out o f her comfort zone!

[@d.romero3014]

"A new way"?, are you kidding me?.

[@jamilaad5387]

A new way of promoting Media

[@Gruntled346]

they've been doing this for years if I'm not mistaken...

[@pauljames1682]

CSP has been around for thermal, the trick is not to heat the PV.

[@stefan0man301]

I think the solar plant was way better in the movie "Sahara" with Mathew McConaughey. :P exempt from the bad stuff.

[@gunplow]

Sun heats chimney cause ing chimney to spin, cool air enters in at bottom below ground level heating by sun (magnified) turn hot air out with venture effect spinning chimney like wind turbine

[@delcat8168]

Even he says it's not new!

[@omganso]

I dont get why everybody is saying this is not new technology he said in the video this is old technology.

[@atwaass]

What if its cloudy

[@Smullet90]

Call it the hyper solar booster loop

[@pdoubleyou7801]

oh the negative comments. its an innovation! the mirror surface needs to be a parabola. these guys have cleverly enclosed the flexible mirror surface inside a round cylinder so that by turning the cylinder it efficiently deforms the mirror into a parabola at optimal angles to the sun. they have made an age old concept better more efficient AND 55% cheaper that current mirror focusing systems (or so they say) perhaps the neg comment posters should re-watch and wonder why non of us thought of this first and rushed to the patent office.