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A solar furnace is a structure that uses concentrated solar power to produce high temperatures, usually for industry. or concentrate light (Insolation) onto a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may reach , and this heat can be used to generate electricity, melt steel, make hydrogen fuel or nanomaterials.
The largest solar furnace is at Odeillo in the Pyrénées-Orientales in France, opened in 1970. It employs an array of plane mirrors to gather sunlight, reflecting it onto a larger curved mirror.
Legendary accounts of the Siege of Syracuse (213–212 BC) tell of Archimedes' heat ray, a set of burnished brass mirrors or supposedly used to ignite attacking ships, though modern historians doubt its veracity.
On 24 September 1901, Knut C. Wideen was granted a patent for a "System for collecting and utilizing solar heat", which included a solar furnace. U.S. Patent 683,088
The first modern solar furnace is believed to have been built in France in 1949 by Professor Félix Trombe. The device, the Mont-Louis Solar Furnace is still in place at Mont-Louis. The Pyrenees were chosen as the site because the area experiences clear skies up to 300 days a year. Odeillo Solar Furnace official website, retrieved 12 July 2007
The Odeillo Solar Furnace is a larger and more powerful solar furnace. It was built between 1962 and 1968, and started operating in 1969. It's currently the most powerful, based on an achievable temperature of 3500 °C.
The Solar Furnace of Uzbekistan was built in Uzbekistan and opened in 1981 as a part of a Soviet Union "Sun" Complex Research Facility, being the world largest concentrator. English Russia's post about the Uzbekistan Soviet Solar Furnace
It has been suggested that solar furnaces could be used in space to provide energy for manufacturing purposes.
Their reliance on sunny weather is a limiting factor as a source of renewable energy on Earth but could be tied to thermal energy storage systems for energy production through these periods and into the night.
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