About Our Company
Our company, Solar Engineering Applications (SEA), pursues a single goal. That goal is to make sunlight the primary energy resource that people everywhere can rely on for their energy needs. Reaching our goal requires two things. First, we have to integrate existing technologies to create new, high-performance systems that can efficiently and cost-effectively transform sunlight into the energy forms that our modern societies require, and second, we have to provide the capability for storing that energy for the long term. When we reach our goal, solar energy will completely replace energy derived from fossil fuels. Our efforts are guided by the following core principals:
Solar energy is the most abundant energy resource we have and it’s distributed with a fair degree of uniformity across all populated regions of our planet. For example, yearly solar irradiation in the Sahara Desert is only a factor of 2 greater than the yearly solar irradiation in northern Europe.
The base technologies for harnessing the solar resource already exist. Scientific breakthroughs and new technology developments are not required. We just need systems that effectively integrate technology elements that we already have.
With only a few exceptions, any country on Earth can achieve total energy independence by properly developing the renewable resources available to it, and the solar energy falling within its own borders will always be a major contributor.
Wide-spread utilization of solar technologies will reduce the economic pressures and political tensions that are currently associated with the irregular distribution of fossil fuels. At the same time, deployment of these technologies will create tens of millions of new jobs and greatly improve the quality of life for people everywhere.
During the years since our efforts began, we’ve made steady progress towards our goal. We’ve developed an innovative cogeneration system (SEA Cogen) which combines state-of-the-art photovoltaic (PV) technology with proven Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology. Our system collects solar radiation and efficiently converts it into electricity and valuable low-grade thermal energy, with more than 90% of incident direct sunlight being converted to useful output. In addition, we can integrate our cogeneration system with existing technologies that provide long-term storage of the energy forms we produce.
Regarding storage of low-grade thermal energy, the SEA cogeneration system interfaces seamlessly with proven Borehole Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage (BSTES) technology—a technology exemplified by the Drake Landing Solar Community (DLSC) in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. BSTES technology provides cost-effective long-term storage of low-grade thermal energy and it allows for efficient recovery of that energy when it’s needed.
In a related development, we’ve created new cooling technology which uses arrays of borehole heat exchangers to draw thermal energy out of the earth, transferring that energy to the atmosphere during seasons when atmospheric temperatures are low. The cooled volume of earth can then serve as a huge heat sink for residential and industrial air conditioning and cooling operations. Since all of the thermal energy transfer processes are temperature-driven, rather than entropy-driven (compressors, condensers, expansion valves etc.) coefficient of performance values in the range of 30 to 40 can be achieved, as are demonstrated in the DLSC heating technology mentioned above. Our cooling technology could eliminate the need to generate 10 to 15 per cent of the electricity now consumed in developed countries.
Regarding storage of electrical energy,, some of the electricity generated by our cogeneration system will be used directly as it is produced, some will be stored in batteries for the short term (overnight or for a few days), and some will drive high-efficiency water electrolysis units, thereby converting solar-derived electrical energy into the chemical energy of hydrogen gas. Hydrogen can either be stored as a high pressure gas or used as a feedstock in chemical synthesis units that provide less explosive fuels with higher volumetric energy density. Because of its low volatility, high volumetric energy density, ease of manufacture, and mature infrastructure, we believe that the preferred fuel for long-term storage of solar-derived electricity is ammonia. During the past decade, tremendous progress has been made in the areas of downwardly scalable ammonia synthesis systems and extremely reliable technologies for safe storage of very large volumes of ammonia (Proton Ventures). Ammonia, or possibly other carbon-free fuels produced from hydrogen, can be safely stored for long periods of time, and then, when their stored chemical energy is needed, these fuels can be burned in heat engines—heat engines which can be used to drive electric generators.
And that’s where another of SEA’s contributions comes into play. We’ve created a conceptual design for a high-efficiency two-stroke internal combustion engine (SEA Engine) which takes full advantage of the special properties of the carbon-free fuels derived from solar electricity. Our engine can efficiently convert the stored chemical energy of these fuels into mechanical energy that can be used in a number of possible applications, the most important of which would be the regeneration of a large fraction of the electricity used originally in the electrolysis processes that produced hydrogen gas. In this way, interfacing our SEA engine with existing water electrolysis and fuel storage technologies enables the economical long-term storage of electrical energy derived from the solar resource.
When suitably integrated with existing technologies, our SEA cogeneration system and our high-efficiency engine can efficiently and cost-effectively convert solar radiation into the types of energy our societies need and they make it possible to store that energy for long periods of time, so we’ll have it whenever we need it.
So where do we stand now? We’re a small company and, as you can see, we’re working on some big ideas, ideas that we think will dramatically change energy infrastructure in countries all over the world. We’re looking for a partner to help with further development of the systems we’ve been working on, a partner who can help to integrate our systems with the amazing energy storage technologies that have been developed during the past few decades. So look around our site to see what we’ve been up to. If you’d like to join us in this great adventure, let us know.