Talk:Solar Panel/@comment-112.135.6.101-20170923040612/@comment-7844119-20180206113721

Best Stirling engines can achieve 50% efficiency converting thermal to mechanical. Reduce this by another 10-20% on mechanical to electric with a generator. So, 45% at best.

Most common solar cells have 15-20% efficiency (best - about 40%, worst - 6%). That means the 12x claim is total BS.

Also, solar cells are solid-state. Their lifetime is many decades with maintenance limited to ocasional cleaning. Stirling engine would need frequent maintenance with wear of the pistons and bearings. Never mind, that to keep the hot cylinder in focal point of the dish, with sun moving, this would need to be equipped with solar tracker / pivot mount (solar cells lose energy with cosine of sun angle above their surface; this - would lose nearly all power with the Sun even a couple degrees off) which further increases costs both of the device and maintenance.

Don't get me wrong: Stirling engines are a very interesting piece of technology with a lot of interesting applications, but running all day for decades non-stop is not one of these.