industry CPV
These deployments initially targeted the sunny parts of Europe, such as Greece and Spain, where developers could exploit very attractive feed-in tariffs. But those great incentives have now been withdrawn, and the South-West US is the new hotbed for CPV. “If we look at 2011 and 2012, probably about half our market will be the US; maybe a quarter Europe, the Middle-East and Africa; and a quarter the rest of the world,” says Hartsoch.
SolFocus announced its SF-1136SX CPV system,which has been refined to meet the growing needs of the CPV
market.This 15.6kW system is claimed to output more power per tracker,and it features a streamlined design utilising multi-panel assemblies to cut installation times and costs
have introduced of new generations of modules that have led to a gain of a few percent in efficiency at the system level. CPV’s competitiveness has also increased through improvements in the efficiency of triple-junction cells, which are getting cheaper and cheaper. Today they only account for a low-double-digit percentage of the system cost – in the past it was up to 20 percent. According to Hartsoch, the lower costs stem from increased competition: “The market was dominated by one or two guys for a long time. Now there is a lot of pressure.” Cell shipments have also gone up, which leads to lower production costs through economies of scale, and there is the promise of far larger orders.
Shifting landscapes
How CPV is installed is also changing. Up until now, quite a few of the CPV projects have been focused on generating electricity for very local consumption. For example, Sol Focus recently completed a 1 MW installation for a pistachio farmer in California’s central valley that provides 70 percent of the power for his processing facilities. But from now on, deployments for utilities will account for a higher and higher proportion of CPV system shipments.
Lerchenmüller offers several reasons why California, in particular, is a very attractive place for deploying CPV systems: a strong demand for summer, daytime electricity due to widespread use of air-conditioning; incredibly sunny sites that are 100 miles or so from areas with a very high population density; and a day- time premium on electricity. Although there are no feed- in tariffs in operation, CPV installations are able to apply for investment tax credits (ITC).
Hartsoch believes that CPV deployments in California have the potential to generate electricity at a cost of 11 or 12 cents per kWhr, even without incentives. And Lerchenmüller agrees, saying that he expects Soitec’s near-term projects to produce electricity at a cost of 12-15 cents per kWhr, a figure that should fall to 10-12 cents per kWhr without the ITC in three-to-four-years’ time. “That, for me, is really grid parity on a power plant level,” says Lerchenmüller. “Below 10 cents is clearly another hurdle.” The case for CPV is so strong in the sunny climes of California that it has helped SolFocus to win two or three contracts against two of the biggest names in the PV sector: The trailblazer of CdTe-on-glass panels, First Solar; and SunPower, a massive player in the silicon sector with annual sales of a more than a billion dollars. SolFocus won the contracts, says Hartsoch, because although it had slightly higher capital costs, its system would generate 20 to 30 percent more energy.
She believes that within a few years, CPV systems will be able to start making a stronger impact in ‘rest-of-the- world’ areas where there are no incentives. In many of these regions, energy prices are currently unpredictable, and a switch to CPV could quash these fluctuations. In addition, this form of power generation could bring electricity to regions that are currently without this valuable resource. “CPV can be a big asset there when you partner with somebody who has the storage equation,” says Hartsoch.
Opportunities for cell makers The big contracts being signed by CPV makers will be greatly welcomed by developers and manufacturers of triple-junction solar cells. Both Hartsoch and Lerchenmüller offer some insights into what these chipmakers must do if they are to be successful, such as excelling in several areas of device performance. “The cells we get today are reliable and proven in space applications. Cell reliability is not a problem today, and
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www.compoundsemiconductor.net August / September 2011
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