Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV)

[arachadillo]

According to the Industry site, CPVToday,

Hansjörg Lerchenmueller, CEO, Concentrix Solar provided an insight into what to expect in the year ahead:

"CPV will be the most cost effective solution for solar electricity in the sunbelt and due to its low environmental impact it will be easiest to implement in large scale. In the past 12 month we achieved a breakthrough both in manufacturing and field operations of CPV power plants – already today we reach system efficiencies above 25%."

While the pronouncement rings true in a general sort of way, the technology still has a way to go in order to catch up with the goals.

"While CPV technology harnesses the power of the sun directly onto compact, electricity producing photovoltaic materials, thereby reducing the need for expensive silicon, land and water use requirements of their concentrated solar thermal rivals (even taking solar thermal dry cool technologies into account), the CPV industry is still fraught with new industry growing pains."

see What's Holding Up Utility Scale Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV)?

[OKIsItJustMe]

1. Learning more about CPV

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/concentrator_systems.html
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pv_sys_concentrator.html