Heyo
Veteran Member
This is orders of magnitude more efficient. You get an efficiency of over 90%, depending on the quality of the mirrors. Solar panels have a typical efficiency of 20% and you loose more energy for transport and conversion of energy. Solar panels have the advantage that they produce electrical energy even on a cloudy day. The furnace only works in direct sunlight.Bingo! My thoughts exactly. The French had a solar furnace in the Pyrenees in the 1950s that did this (I read about it as a kid) and built a better one a decade later: Odeillo solar furnace - Wikipedia
What I'm unclear about is why it is better to get high temperatures this way rather than via electric heating, using electricity from solar panels. I can only presume they think they get better efficiency this way.