first of all, for renewable energy i much prefer the use of wind.. its cheaper, easier to build, more reliable, more efficient, and all around superior to solar panels... downside you may live in an area that wont allow you to have such a structure, as it would require a chunk of land to yourself...

solar panels are very inefficient, and fragile, not to mention incredibly expensive... so an alternative to solar panels for solar energy is what ive been working on building myself

this structure for myself is a 15' wide satellite dish shaped structure, the inside of the dish is made up of mirrors, these mirrors collect on the collector, and reflect to a single point in front of the dish (such as the LNBs on a satellite TV dish)... however, where the sunlight collects is a stirling engine mounted on the arm... the sunlight heats one cylinder of the stirling engine causing the air inside to expand, using the heat of the sunlight itself to create power

benefits of this system is its a lot more durable, more reliable, more efficient, and cheaper way of creating electricity from sunlight