Active Collaborations
Where SHINE work is happening now
Harnessing Solar Energy — Student Engineering Projects
Texas A&M University's Harnessing Solar Energy course is an active site of SHINE collaboration. Students are engaged in real engineering problems including concentrating solar furnace characterization and system development at multiple scales. Research from this collaboration feeds back into the initiative directly.
This is the model for SHINE university collaboration: students working on hardware that matters, with results that go beyond a semester project.
Concentrating solar prototype — student engineering at Texas A&M
Concentrating Solar Furnace — Multi-Scale Prototype
Development and characterization of Fresnel lens concentrating solar furnace systems at tabletop and small room scale. Focus areas: optical alignment, focal flux measurement, thermal receiver design, and tracking mechanics. Instrumentation for all systems is developed in parallel by Sunstrike Optics.
Current work is centered on validating achievable temperatures across lens aperture sizes and documenting system design for open sharing.
Large concentrating solar system — deployed and tracking on sun
Solar Furnace Instrumentation Platform
Custom measurement and data logging systems for characterizing concentrating solar furnace performance — focal flux measurement, temperature mapping, and thermal receiver instrumentation. These tools are necessary for doing credible research and sharing results that others can build on.
Solar furnace instrumentation — measurement and characterization platform
This Page Grows With the Work
Projects are added as they develop
SHINE is in active development. As new pilot sites, collaborating institutions, and community partners come on board, they'll be documented here. If you're working on something related and want to be listed — or want to discuss becoming a pilot site — reach out.
Are you working on concentrating solar, community fabrication, or solar thermal research that connects with SHINE's focus?
Talk to us about a collaboration →