Comments on: Clean Energy Startup Infinia Raises $50 Million To Crank up Manufacturing

By: Trilliant Raises $40 Million For Work On Smart Power Grid

Trilliant Raises $40 Million For Work On Smart Power Grid — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:50:15 +0000

[...] this year we saw another similarly large investment in more efficient power sources when Infinia raised million for its renewable energy source, which combines a Stirling engine with a large solar [...]

By: Trilliant Raises $40 Million For Work On Smart Power Grid

Trilliant Raises $40 Million For Work On Smart Power Grid — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:10:19 +0000

[...] this year we saw another similarly large investment in more efficient power sources when Infinia raised $50 million for its renewable energy source, which combines a Stirling engine with a large solar [...]

By: Kevin Kris

Kevin Kris — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:37:14 +0000

What the heck, they updated the price from 10,000$ to 20,000$ !
huh..

what Micheal? giving us wrong data? come on..

By: Anthony Kuhn

Anthony Kuhn — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:47:53 +0000

Everything old is new again. Stirling engines are a great idea with the next thing needed to make this technology viable is a way to store up energy on sunny days for those when Sol stays hidden behind the clouds, or switch to a wavelength that isn’t affected so much by gray days. Thanks for your coverage of this exciting development in solar energy generation!

By: uploadchoice

uploadchoice — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:37:07 +0000

I hope the company will make renewable energy inexpensive.

By: moorthy.me

moorthy.me — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:15:30 +0000

i could not belive this cost. i hope this will be effective to developed countires and not in developing countires like india.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:32:50 +0000

I’m not sure that this will be the one, but hopefully someone solves the energy crisis soon…

By: Kevin Kris

Kevin Kris — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:10:27 +0000

Ryan, The initial investment for 1.2 MW wind turbine is very high to the tune of 1.5 million $ and needs maintenance.
Of course it’s more economical in large scale.

You are right, striling sytems are not intended to put in peoples lawn but sure it will make a small scale power plant with zero maintenance.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:01:54 +0000

Kevin, unless people are willing to stick these on their lawns, its not going make any real impact. These just don’t produce enough power for it to make sense to build a centralized “power plant” out of them.

And if you do, why not build a wind farm instead? More power (~1.2 MW per turbine v. 3.5kW), and they typically have higher efficiency than 24%

By: Kevin Kris

Kevin Kris — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:48:10 +0000

Is it really 20,000$ a piece installed? I don’t believe the price.. Too cheap..

By: Kevin Kris

Kevin Kris — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:44:49 +0000

Ryan, you are right as per installed cost, but what about maintenance for a solar thermal plant. Here for stirling engine there are no moving parts, no maintenance for 20 years.

For thermal plant, you need people, turbines, maintenance, water blah blah.
Solar PV has 10 to 12% efficiency. Stirling has 24%.

Go Solar!
Peace!

Kris

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:25:37 +0000

So I assume that the stirling engine technology is already in use in things like geothermal energy plants, or reusing waste heat from industrial processes?

Is there anything particularly new about the companies products, apart from economies of scale perhaps?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:24:45 +0000

At $20,000 a pop for 3.5 measly kilowatts, your looking at a higher installed cost ($5,714/kW) than either current PV or Thermal Solar Power. The installed cost of PV Solar is $4,751/kW. Thermal Solar is $3,149/kW. Also, solar will only have a real impact with distributed generation, where solar panels on roofs make the most sense.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:20:43 +0000

I know someone who put solar panels on his roof and tied it into California’s power grid. When the panels produced a surplus, the power meter would spin backwards. As a result, his net power bill was negative. This was part of state’s plan (http://gov.ca.g...ss-release/3588) to move towards renewable energy sources.

I wonder if there’s market in selling a smaller version of these units to the home market. Would it be more efficient than solar panels? Are they noisy?

By: CanCar

CanCar — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:34:23 +0000

By the way, clean energy includes energy efficiency and clean energy supply options like highly efficient combined heat and power as well as renewable energy sources.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:25:03 +0000

@3: Couldn’t agree more. It’s not specific to TechCrunch – I’ve seen it on Gizmodo in the last week or two – but they seriously need a proof-reader.

@9: Batteries!

By: gilltots

gilltots — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:17:50 +0000

what happens at night?

By: Kevin Kris

Kevin Kris — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:10:33 +0000

Simply Great! SES Systems is not for small players, atleast Infinia can provide this technology at affordable price to small power plant investors. What i can think is, instead of going for solar PV 5 or 10 home owners can unite and create a small infinia based stirling engine power plant which way economical. And utility companies should consider the power generated by this power plant as the home owners generated and should give credits virtually.

Great news..

By: Andy Gongea

Andy Gongea — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:02:21 +0000

Good news.

Alternative energy is a hot sector and while we will buy more electric accessories – they will raise more money and develop new ways to make energy.

It’s awesome these days to be in the energy business.

By: Joell

Joell — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:59:52 +0000

Solar and wind energy have proven not to be a good solution for green energy. Fusion energy seems to be real in several years. The first fusion reactor will be ready in the next century, if everything goes by schedule. See it here:
http://www.duck....com/spice/iter

By: Lance Weatherby

Lance Weatherby — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:52:00 +0000

Suniva is another solar company that last week raised $50 million. The space is indeed hot.

By: Bill Hartzer

Bill Hartzer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:40:15 +0000

Any business model that has a track record of being profitable–especially if it has the word “environmental friendly” associated anywhere with it will be hot right now. I also suspect it to only get hotter, even a few years from now.

By: Mahoney

Mahoney — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:32:04 +0000

Good article, interesting content, but I think TC could use investment in editing:

“putting in $9.5million just June”…last June?

“and has been around fro more than two decades”…yeah, fros were popular about then

“Now, it is focussed exclusively”…does that mean they were doubly focused?

By: MikeT

MikeT — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:27:28 +0000

Time to get rid of the extremely expensive solar panels.

Thank you, oil prices, for your contribution to technology progress…

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:09:53 +0000

Clean Energy Startup Infinia Raises $50 Million To Crank up Manufacturing