Yellow Hills Ranch has been designed as a showcase for a sustainable, low-impact, off-the-grid thriving home independence. To learn more about our iPOWER Living technology to be showcased on the Ranch, click here (opens a new browser window)

Unique technologies will be demonstrated on the Ranch. Our first demonstration involves a breakthrough in concentrating solar power.

Spectrum Electric with its unique Collecting Solar Power Dish system, operating in tandem with an advanced "Herling Engine," produces greater power for less than half the cost per watt of other energy systems. Compared to the PV industry standard, Yellow Hills Ranch will initially demonstrate this breakthrough sustainable solar discovery, delivering twice the power for half the cost.

Empowering a new way of living is ultimately a journey to a new human being. Along the way, it can also draw upon a unique Earth-friendly technology toolbox. Delivering an integrated portfolio of technologies to diverse global markets is a mission of this undertaking. Technologies showcased on the Ranch will be offered to diverse markets through our business associate, iPOWER Living LLC.

The reasons to pursue clean energy solutions and sustainable building practices while lowering our carbon footprint and other negative human impacts are routinely debated. One recent reason involves NASA findings that the intensifying solar storms on our sun could knock out power systems that are public-grid dependent.   Brown outs from over-capacity summer cooling demands as well as blackouts from severe winter storms are presently occurring. New technologies supporting basic home comforts with off-the-grid low-cost options--such as affordable heating, cooling and portable sustainable electricity--currently exist but with no public demonstration of their efficacy, these alternative solutions are not part of today's public debate.

Our vision is to demonstrate a new way of living using sustainable, inexpensive low impact methods to heat a home, cool a home and deliver its electrical requirements using low-cost portable technology advances. Establishing a world Showcase for a price-competitive solar power breakthrough is expected to be our initial demonstration but many additional discoveries are expected to be demonstrated in stages on the Ranch as well.   Our first technology demonstration involves a unique Solar Thermal Electric Power Array.

Spectrum Electric (Solar Thermal Concentrating Solar Power Dish): JetStream Wind Inc. has entered into an agreement with World Associates Inc. to build four one-megawatt Spectrum Electic solar dish arrays on the Ranch to demonstrate a new way of living.

Each one megawatt facility consists of 100 dishes utilizing approximately three acres. Following construction of the initial 4 MW array, Yellow Hills Ranch plans to construct Spectrum Electric arrays on a continuing basis building to a 100 megawatt capacity--sufficient electricity to power approximately 75,000 homes (a city the size of Santa Fe.) A 100 MW Spectrum Electric array involves one thousand 18 foot concentrating solar power dishes, each generating 10 KW of electricity. The required land area is approximately 300 acres.

The electricity produced by our New Mexico Showcase is expected to attract many interested buyers from utilities to municipalities to commercial and industrial consumers. Los Alamos Lab has indicated interest in securing the entire output. Four utility companies in the area who can readily connect to power lines that cross the property may have interest as well. Yellow Hills Ranch has a 69-kilovolt line currently in place with as much as 80 megawatts capacity.

Spectrum Electric (tm) utilizes a modified stirling engine powered by the expansion of a gas when heated followed by the compression of the gas when cooled. The engine contains a fixed gas amount that gets transferred back and forth between a cold end and a hot end. The helium gas changes its internal volume as the gas expands and contracts. Powering a generator with this unique dish-engine system, alternating current results more efficiently than photovoltaic solar panels.

Invented in 1816, the Stirling engine has been one of the most efficient and reliable methods for producing power using a heat-to-electricity system. Des pite its exceptional efficiency (nearly 50% in some cases), Stirling Engines did not catch on in the nineteenth century largely due to their manufacturing costs. Employing the proprietary Spectrum Electric TM advanced technology with a modified "Herling engine,' solar power becomes competitive with coal for the first time. Spectrum Electric (tm) employs a specialized, custom Fresnel lens to focus approximately one meter of sunlight on a 250 watt Herling engine. Producing temperatures never before achieved by any collector dish (in excess of 4.500 degrees C), water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen at the solar array to produce a secondary fuel as well.

The modified Herling engine is produced by Jetstream Wind in partnership with E.C. Saggitar, BV--the leading Stirling engine design firm in the world. Our engine is coupled with a proprietary 18 foot reflective dish that is enhanced with a reflective film coating developed by ReflecTech, Inc. (in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.) The Spectrum Electric solar collecting dish employs a breakthrough double-bounce light focusing method that has created the most efficient electrical generating system ever. Twelve modules, with mounting and interconnect hardware, are required for each 3 KW array. Competitor CSP systems can employ up to 30,000 parts for each dish system. Spectrum Electric has 433 parts. State-of-the-art sensors provide input for a dual axis tracking system that automatically adjusts the dish to maximize solar input for the greatest number of sun hours per day.

Portable pylons called PYRALONS (tm) are an additional innovation. Providing a secure foundation for each 18 foot dish, PYRALONS could be described as "green from the ground up."They allow each dish system to be installed quickly and efficiently. Unlike cement foundations, PYRALONS can be put in place in virtually any weather or ground condition. The area of the Ranch devoted to this solar development will be turned into an exceptionally beautiful green belt enhanced by hiking trails and forest garden designs.

100 Megawatt Concentrating Solar Power Ranch Site