I have been complaining that Penon seems incompetent. It is a little unfair for me to grouse without substantiating my complaints. Let me briefly describe why I am not impressed.
The report is here: http://coldfusionnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/105322688-Penon4-1.pdf As I wrote previously: "It says output was 2.5 ~ 3.7 kW, and input was 3.6 kW." That's a BIG PROBLEM. Red flag! If I did a study and came up with an answer somewhere between 2.5 and 3.7 kW I would not publish it. That is an absurdly wide error margin. Narrowing it down in this case is easy. It is trivial. You calibrate. You step the cell through 8 or 10 steps at power levels ranging from 4 to 8 kW. That range covers the lowest to the highest power levels you think the cell is producing. I also said: "I do not think much of the methodology. I recommend calibrations and the use of thermocouple to augment the IR camera." I just explained why calibrations are important. I do not see them in this report. A thermocouple to confirm the IR camera is essential. "I admit I have not looked as closely as I did to the Levi reports, but I am not impressed. . . ." When I saw that gigantic error margin I thought, "What the hell is going on? Why didn't he get a better answer than that?!?" Basically I tossed it aside after that. The method of using an IR camera is crude but it can be done reasonably well, with calibrations and a thermocouple and some other precautions. It is not a bad start. But I would follow up with flow calorimetry, probably air-flow rather than water. A person who screws up a test on this scale can probably screw up a megawatt test too. Measuring megawatts is harder than you might think. It is actually easier to measure, say, 100 W with confidence than it is to measure a megawatt. Jones Beene also got a bad impression from this report. Maybe he tell us his reasons. - Jed
