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I've been following the development of Infinia's free-piston Stirling generator for awhile now. These units create grid quality AC electricity from heat, and are reliable, quiet, and versatile. They can run on almost any heat source, including wood fires, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and solar.
As it stands, Infinia seems to be concentrating on larger, utility sized arrays, but they do have plans on introducing products aimed more at the consumer level. I will take a hard look at them when they do.
Infinia Stirling Technology
The product I am most interested in is the PowerDish. This uses a parabolic reflector to concentrate sunlight onto the heat end of their Stirling generator to produce 3500 Watts of AC... directly from sunlight. The PowerDish will be cheaper, smaller, and more efficient than any existing photovoltaic solution. Right now, the smallest arrays they market consist of 64 of these dishes, but the site announces plans to market single dishes soon.
The Tooele Army Depot in Utah just finished an installation of PowerDishes in June 2013, and they are operational at several other sites around the world.
I think these devices have a lot of potential for preppers. They are small, relatively inexpensive, simple, quiet, and require little or no maintenance. Infinia has been running a test engine for over 11 years with no loss of output power and no maintenance at all. You gotta love that!
As it stands, Infinia seems to be concentrating on larger, utility sized arrays, but they do have plans on introducing products aimed more at the consumer level. I will take a hard look at them when they do.
Infinia Stirling Technology
The product I am most interested in is the PowerDish. This uses a parabolic reflector to concentrate sunlight onto the heat end of their Stirling generator to produce 3500 Watts of AC... directly from sunlight. The PowerDish will be cheaper, smaller, and more efficient than any existing photovoltaic solution. Right now, the smallest arrays they market consist of 64 of these dishes, but the site announces plans to market single dishes soon.
The Tooele Army Depot in Utah just finished an installation of PowerDishes in June 2013, and they are operational at several other sites around the world.
I think these devices have a lot of potential for preppers. They are small, relatively inexpensive, simple, quiet, and require little or no maintenance. Infinia has been running a test engine for over 11 years with no loss of output power and no maintenance at all. You gotta love that!