CPV GETS RESPECT

Is the Concentrated Photovoltaic Sector Heating Up?
Chris de Morsella, May 15, 2011 (The Green Economy Post)

"…Concentrated Photovoltaics or CPV is a relatively new and promising form of solar energy that is now beginning to make it out into the market. CPV systems use optics to concentrate a large amount of sunlight onto a relatively small area of specially designed solar photovoltaic material that can work with highly concentrated light energy…

"…CPV systems concentrate light and can produce the same power from a much smaller area of solar cells…[T]hey may…[therefore] produce electricity for less than conventional PV can. CPV, like solar thermal systems, also known as CSP, first concentrate the incident solar energy onto a much smaller active area…where the sun’s energy is actually collected, but unlike CSP systems CPV uses photovoltaic tecnology to directly transform the highly concentrated photons into electricity, whereas CSP uses these concentrated photons to heat a working fluid, which then is used to generate electricity in a thermoelectric plant…"

A CPV array (click to enlarge)

"The U.S. Department of Energy has announced that it will help to bring this technology to market with a a $90.6 million conditional loan guarantee to Cogentrix of Alamosa, LLC to help secure financing for a 30-megawatt facility to be built near Alamosa, Colorado. The project is one of the first utility scale, concentration photovoltaic energy generation facilities in the U.S. and the largest of its kind in the world…

"…Cogentrix estimates the project will create about 75 construction jobs and 10 operations jobs. It will be located on 225 acres of land in the San Luis Valley. Commercial operation of the project is targeted for the second quarter of 2012…"

click to enlarge

"The multi-junction solar cells are nearly 40% efficient or about double that of more traditional PV. Cogentrix will use 23.5-meter-wide panels with more than 1,000 pairs of lenses and solar cells on each. The panels are mounted on tracking systems that keep the lenses pointed within 0.8 degrees of the angle of the sun throughout the day, to ensure that light falls on the system’s 0.7-square-centimeter solar cells…

"The CPV sector is tiny compared to other solar power sectors including traditional PV…[and] currently represents around one tenth of one percent of the total solar market…[but] is expected to begin a period of sustained and rapid expansion as…[technical challenges] are solved. Some analysts are predicting that it will double in size each year through 2015…Soitec…[has] announced a major 150-megawatt CPV solar power project plant for San Diego Gas & Electric to be constructed on a 1057-acre site in Southern California’s western Imperial County, and is expected to be completed in 2015."