A solar power conversion system using a plurality of engines to convert solar energy to electrical energy. The plurality of engines are supported adjacent to a housing having a single thermal cavity. The cavity is provided with solar energy from a solar collector. Each of the engines can be turned off or regulated to maintain an optimum operating temperature for a common heater head in communication with each of the engines. Therefore, the power conversion system can be regulated for variations in insolation to maintain an optimum temperature in the heater head. Therefore, increased life cycle energy efficiency of the power conversion system can be obtained.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/282,038 filed on Nov. 17, 2005 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,026,722, presently allowed, which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/434,311 filed on May 8, 2003, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,979,911 B2 on Dec. 27, 2005. The disclosure of the above application is incorporated herein by reference.
The invention includes a solar collector subsystem and a heat engine. The solar collector system uses heliostat mirrors, a parabolic mirror, and a convex concentrator lens or compound parabolic concentrator to gather a large amount of solar energy into a very intense beam. The beam is used to vaporize an injected droplet of working fluid, whereby multiple opposed pistons responsive to the vapor formed reciprocate to produce electric energy by means of linear electric generators. The heat engine includes a chamber having three orthogonal sets of opposed pistons, wherein each piston is independently axially reciprocable and coupled to a linear electric generator. One piston is provided with an axially located window that admits the concentrated solar beam from the solar collector subsystem into the chamber of the heat engine. Another piston is provided with an injector that selectably injects a water drop into the center of the chamber where it can be vaporized by impingement of the concentrated solar beam.
