PISMO BEACH, Calif., Aug. 22, 2012 — For decades it's been known that heliostats – sun tracking mirrors – have the potential to provide low-cost heat and light for buildings and even for industrial processes. Unfortunately, commercial heliostats have been plagued by reliability problems, high cost, and fragile mirrors, not to mention tricky-to-use control systems. And “consumer-grade” heliostats don't offer the flexibility and reliability needed for industrial work.
Fortunately, a team of engineers and manufacturing experts at LightManufacturing LLC in Pismo Beach, California has developed a unique high-performance heliostat that combines simple setup and operation with the lowest cost per mirror area of any heliostat. The LightManufacturing H1 heliostat delivers over 2000 watts of heat and light energy to a target, and multiple H1s can be combined into hugely powerful arrays.
The H1 heliostat is the first and only heliostat that uses a tensioned-film reflector. Instead of fragile glass, the H1's mirror is made of thin but incredibly tough metalized plastic stretched onto an aircraft-grade aluminum frame. The result is a shatterproof mirror that's lightweight, safe, and has better reflective properties than glass. The result? A bigger mirror and more heat and light delivered to the target.
In addition to the unique reflector, the H1 features an available wireless control system. This lets the user configure, aim, and control many heliostats from a simple-to-use computer program. H1 heliostats can be aimed at any number of targets on demand – unlike home-oriented designs that are locked on a single target.
The tensioned film mirror used in the H1 is dismounted and rolled for compact shipment. Unlike traditional heliostats, the H1 heliostat can be “flat-packed” – it's shipped in 3 sections, and easily assembled onsite. Shipping costs and risk of shipping damage is much lower than glass-mirror heliostats.
What do customers do with H1 heliostats? Some use them to capture light on building rooftops and pipe the light to lower floors for providing low-cost illumination. In LightManufacturing's own SRM (Solar Rotational Molding) systems, an array of H1 heliostats deliver over 20,000 watts of energy to make plastic parts without the use of natural gas. Other applications include steam generation, drying food in agricultural operations, warming greenhouses, melting ice, enhancing oil extraction, and much more.
"Any process that uses fossil-fuel generated heat is a candidate for conversion to heliostat energy," says LightManufacturing CEO Karl von Kries. "We developed the H1 for our own internal use, and field-proved it in our SRM plastic molding systems. Now we're making the H1 available to everyone who needs low-cost heat and light."
LightManufacturing's H1 heliostats are available at http://www.lightmanufacturingsystems.com/heliostats starting at $1349 USD.
Contact:
Karl von Kries
LightManufacturing LLC
855 4th St
Pismo Beach, CA 93449
Email
[415] 796-6475
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