Solar
Concentrator
Focussed Parabolas
The technology behind Solar Concentrators
has existed for hundreds of years. The concept is simple: align a reflective surface such that it reflects sunlight to the point that you want. In mathematical terms, make a parabola.
Once the sunlight has been redirected, the next stage is getting a lot of it. The sun hits the earth with a power of approximately 1 kW/m^2, so in order to collect 1 kW of power, we need to reflect the light from about 1 square meter.
​For some, the thermal or electrical applications are much larger than 1 kW. The answer is still theoretically simple; for more power, collect more sunlight, use bigger dishes. From a practical standpoint, however, making massive dishes creates major increased costs and technological problems. To the right, we can see a larger model (approximately 50 kW) that needs a substantial support structure just to hold up the mirrors.
From a technological perspective, solar concentrators are simple enough to understand. Why then, are they not more widely used among peoples where sunlight is in excess?