Comments on: Stirling Engine Efficiency

By: Andre

Andre — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 21:53:41 +0000

That is rather good. I was thinking of what it would be in the new Sterling Engines for solar to electricity effeciency?

By: Stephen Landreth

Stephen Landreth — Tue, 17 May 2011 03:31:52 +0000

Hi there,
The temperature of the water available may be of a low temperature coming from a solar panel of some sort I suspect…
A better way to go may be to use a parabolic mirror to reflect onto the hot cylinder of the stirling engine as the temperature of sunlight is around 6000K
The only trouble is you will need a large reflecter

By: Andrew Cripps

Andrew Cripps — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:22:48 +0000

Replying to the response: the fact that the solar heat is ‘free’ doesnt change the efficiency of the stirling engine. In fact it will be quite low as the temperature is low. But if you have spare solar heat the efficiency is less critical if it gives you electricity that you need. It will save CO2 if you can burn less fuel.

By: Zaky

Zaky — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:53:07 +0000

Hi,
I am thinking of using hot water from solar evacuated tube does this ‘free heat’ help its efficiency compared to coal fired heat. What about possible reduction of CO2 using heat from the sun as preheater for hot water stirling engine?
Zaky