1414 project

[degarb]

http://www.afr.com/news/silicon-wil...t-of-water-says-adelaide-firm-20170207-gu7eg7


I am guessing ceramic housing. But I am very interested in what material used for housing. 1414C is very hot. Sounds like my next headlamp power storage solution. Just kidding, naturally.

If feasible, could be last piece of the solar puzzle. If true that solar cells price has dropped 80 percent over last decade, with 50 percent increase in efficiency on near horizon, newer cheaper production to come, India and Africa market will make solar inroads no matter who is president. Only the grid keepers, the electric companies in each country, could slow this train, by overcharging solar supplying individuals for grid hookups.

 

[EseriesModder]

"[FONT=sueca_hd_regular]The device stores electrical energy by using it to heat a block of pure silicon to melting point – 1414 degrees Celsius. It discharges through a heat-exchange device such as a Stirling engine or a turbine, which converts heat back to electrical energy, and recycles waste heat to lift efficiency."
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I'm reluctant to even apply terms like "Self-discharge" to this technology. I'd assume this would be limited to large scale, short term energy storage, simply because you need to consider how much thermal shielding would be needed to keep the molten silicon from cooling. That doesn't make it impossible, it just means efficiency will fluctuate depending on the scale. On a small scale it would be mostly insulation, making it impractical. On a giant scale the increase in mass will help retain heat, but after a certain point you'll introduce other problems, like circulating the heat you're introducing as electrical current.

You can compare it to storing liquid nitrogen. In a thermos all of it will be gone in just a few hours, just sitting there, where as a large scale storage facility can achieve negligible losses per day. That's an imperfect example, but it still deals with temperature extremes.

And I'm going to completely ignore that they said "sterling engine." I'll be here all day, otherwise. Someone else can try to tackle that one.

You're right, though, that this could be used with solar. You could power a city for the whole night on power generated during the day. My only skepticism comes from long term storage, and you don't have that issue in that scenario.