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"...a market economy is essentially a genetic algorithm for solving resource allocation problems..."
- Charles Stross

Sun-Engine  
  A device that absorbs solar rays for power.  

Earliest use of this particular phrase.

Curwood turned away, lips tight. He forced himself to take note of the surroundings. The buildings around were of a strange, ornate architecture. Toward the center line of the valley, where the sunlight was strongest, were the huge machines he had vaguely seen through the visor of his air-helmet during his first descent into the Blue Mist. Mirrored and skeletal, they seemed to be some sort of sun-engine. Thin vanes within glass spheres began already to rotate as the sun’s rays poured into them.
Technovelgy from Valley of Lost Souls, by Eando Binder.
Published by Amazing Stories in 1939
Additional resources -

Compare to the sun plant (solar motor) from The Lotus-Engine by Raymond Z. Gallun, published by Super Science Stories in 1940.

See also the power planet from Power Planet (1931) by Murray Leinster, the near-space solar energy collector from Star Maker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon, the solar energy beam from Masquerade (1941) by Clifford Simak and the solar station from Isaac Asmov's 1941 story Reason.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Valley of Lost Souls
  More Ideas and Technology by Eando Binder
  Tech news articles related to Valley of Lost Souls
  Tech news articles related to works by Eando Binder

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