One of the big problems of solar energy has always been availability. There’s no sun on a cloudy day or at night. The solution would be to store the suns energy and use it when the sun is not available. Storing elecrticity in such quantities is very expensive. Another solution would be to use the electricity to produce hydrogen that can be latter used to produce electricity again. This process is not very efficient and storing hydrogen is both expensive and dangerous.

The proposed solution is to store heat which is both cheap and effective. The accumulated heat can later be used to produce electricity when it is needed.

The system uses an array of mirrors that reflect the sun’s heat onto a tank of water. The produced steam turns a turbine. Really simple – a good old fasioned steam engine. This works even at night because water can store heat for a long time.

A new invention that would allow domestic window to function as solar panels was recently invented by scientist at MIT in Boston. The real invention is a special coat that aplied to the windows conducts some of the light to the edges where the solar cells are. This has several advantages it allows for smaller solar cells lowering the cost of the installations, concentrates the light raising the eficiency as the solar cells are more eficient at higher light intensities. Another major saving is the unobtrusive installation that requires just a coat of the revolutionary material thus eliminating the need of expensive roof mounted panels or concentrators that need further cooling.