This mirror is the most efficient for cheap solar energy, but if there is no hail

Описание: 0:00 - It's not mirror stainless steel
0:33 - My search for cheap mirrors
1:25 - Anodized aluminum proved to be the most effective
2:10 - My experiments with aluminum mirrors
2:35 - That French aluminum mirror
3:08 - Lifespan of German aluminum mirrors
3:40 - Lifespan of my Chinese anodized aluminum
4:40 - Solar energy for 0.5 cents / kWh
6:04 - Results of 10 years of testing my aluminum mirrors

This is an example of an ineffective mirror, and I used these stainless steel sheets so that they focus the solar radiation here, where the radiation turns into high temperature which produces steam. Now I show my experimental measurement of how much thermal energy is produced from these stainless steel sheets of this grade. It turns out that the stainless steel ranks last because it produces 9% less heat than this leader that will be featured in this video.

I remind you that I am looking for cheap alternatives to these expensive mirrors which help solar radiation produce electricity not only during the day but also at night thanks to these heat storages. This is a big advantage over solar panels which only work when the sun is shining, and investors have already built more than 100 mirror power plants of various types with a total cost of about 60,000,000,000 USD. Unfortunately, these solar power plants are expensive, but our cheap mirrors will make their electricity cheaper than electricity from thermal and nuclear power plants.

That is why my 6 previous videos described my experiments with cheap mirrors based on glass rectangles, mirror steel, reflective film on expanded polystyrene, mirror balloons, reflective film on a concrete sheet, and reflective film on a thin steel structure. This video will be about the 7th type of cheap mirrors, and it won these efficiency measurements, and I remind you that the stainless steel took the last place.

This reflective mylar film came in 2nd to last place because it turned out that it produces 3% less heat than the leader. But it was a new film, and it would lose the efficiency month after month due to degradation of its reflective layer and accumulation of dirt.

These mirrors made from strips of ordinary glass mirror took 2nd place. The radiation losses here, at the edges of the strips and the gaps between them, led to the fact that the glass mirrors produced 2% less thermal energy than this leader, which is sheets of anodized aluminum.

Unfortunately, thin aluminum sheets have disadvantages which are eliminated by their composite structure, when an aluminum sheet is supplemented with layers of metals and polymers. That is why I made these 4 different aluminum composites many years ago, and the end of this video will show their condition after almost 10 years of outdoor use, so that we can choose the best composite structure.

Of course, other bloggers have also made aluminum mirrors. For example, one French blogger turned a flat sheet of aluminum into this mirror dish which focuses solar radiation here, although this traditional method of turning a sheet into a dish seems simpler. He suggested using his aluminum dish for cooking, but we know other interesting uses. For example, those aluminum mirrors are installed here, and my solar station is designed to heat this house both day and night using this heat storage with 3 tons of water

These mirrors are also made of anodized aluminum, and they produce steam at a temperature of almost 150 ⁰C for needs of a factory. The mirrors were made by this German company, and they differ from regular anodized aluminum in that they have several protective layers, thanks to which the manufacturer gives them a 10-year warranty.

But I think their lifespan will be several times longer, because look at the condition of my mirrors made of cheap Chinese aluminum which does not have those additional protective layers. This was their condition after almost 9 years of outdoor use in the climate of central Ukraine, and this is the situation a year later. I remind you that this is cheap Chinese anodized aluminum after 10 years of outdoor use, and you see that its condition is still good, but perhaps its efficiency has decreased a little.

Unfortunately, here you see circles with a diameter of less than 1 cm, where the reflection can be considered lost, which is the consequence of hail with a diameter of up to 15 mm, and now I am showing the condition a week after that hail. This is aluminum with a thickness of 0.3 mm, but it is interesting that these sheets of stainless steel with a thickness of 0.4 mm did not receive any damage from the same hail. Here we can see stains that are irreversibly made by drops of aggressive dirty water, but nevertheless here, on the stainless steel, the same water did not make any indelible stains.