Continuing with the general idea of transfer, I went back to researching solar power plants. I looked again at how Concentrated Solar Power technologies use mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto receivers. These receivers collect the solar energy and convert it to high temperature liquid, steam or gas i.e. thermal energy which is then converted to electrical energy.

The photo above is the Andasol 1 solar thermal power plant filled with parabolic trough collectors. Heated to approximately 400°C by the concentrated sun’s rays, the synthetic thermal oil is then pumped through a series of heat exchangers to produce steam. The steam is converted to electrical energy in a conventional steam turbine generator.

The use of mirrors is something to think about further. Living in a flat with only one window receiving  sunlight for a few minutes a day, this could be an area I'm going to look into further to see if that tiny bit of solar energy can be used.