All About Solar | Green Energy News

July 9 ,2006 – Vol.11 No.16

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news.

By the end of 2006 SunPower Corporation will have an annual production capacity of 108 megawatts of solar photovoltaic power at its plant in the Philippines. The company is gearing up for more capacity by 2007, however. It has purchased a second building nearby that will be large enough to bring solar production capacity to 300 megawatts. That’s the equivalent of building one large wind farm, or one small fossil fuel power plant or so, each year.

Though global supplies of polysilicon to make silicon solar cells are momentarily tight, SunPower has ensured the supply of polysilicon for its new operations by signing a multiyear supply agreement with DC Chemical Company of Korea. SunPower will purchase $250 million in polysilicon over a four-year period from DC. That company is gearing up to meet the needs of the growing solar industry by building a new facility to produce 3000 metric tons of polysilicon ingots each year.

SunPower solar products include the A300 solar cell and a variety of panels made with those cells, as well as inverters. The A300 has a minimum solar-to-electric conversion efficiency of 20-percent, according to the company. A new cell - the Gen 2 - will have a conversion efficiency of 22 percent. SunPower cells achieve their high efficiency, in part, by moving the electrical connection grid to the back side of the cell to free up more light absorbing space on the front.

The Gen 2 cells will be produced at the new plant in the Philippines beginning in the first half of 2007. SunPower is a majority owned subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor. Visit SunPower at http://www.sunpowercorp.com/

With a the help of a $7.8 million loan guarantee from the Export-Import Bank of the US (Ex-Im Bank), PowerLight will be able to provide equipment and services for a 1-megawatt solar project in Gwangju, Korea. PowerLight is the first company to benefit from Ex-Im Bank’s new 15-year repayment program for US renewable energy exports.

The solar project will be built atop the Kim Dae Jung Convention Center in Gwangju, 200 miles south of Seoul. The project will include PowerLight’s solar tracking equipment. Power from the project will be sold to the Korea Electric Power Corporation under a 15-year contract. Visit PowerLight at http://www.powerlight.com/ Ex-Im Bank at http://www.exim.gov/

Concentrating solar light on solar photovoltaic cells with a lens can cut down on the cost of solar electricity. Fewer solar cells are needed, and excess heat generated by the concentration of the light can be be utilized for other purposes - hot water heating or air conditioning, for example. These cogenerating modules increase the overall efficiency of the solar equipment thus reduce overall costs.

ENTECH of Keller, Texas makes a solar concentrator module using only 37 individual cells to produce 430 watts of power. Including the Fresnel lens concentrator. the module is about 3 feet wide, 12 long and 3 deep. The company claims it’s the world’s largest PV module. It could very well be. The solar module, because of its lens concentrator uses only 5 percent of the silicon typically used in flat plate modules for the same amount of power output.

The company is also developing another device called Stretched Lens Arrays (SLA). They use numerous smaller Fresnel lenses to concentrate solar energy on many high-efficiency, multi-junction solar cells. The company’s expertise at focusing light also is applied in a line of solar tube skylights the company sells.

The company has had some success in selling its technology including a 100-kilowatt power plant in Texas and the use of its lens technology in NASA’s Deep Space One space vehicle.

Now, the company is being purchased by World Water and Power and sales could increase. World Water has been active in selling solar systems used specifically for commercial and water pumping applications. In the buyout a new subsidiary will be created. ENTECH will also continue its current development work with NASA and the US Department of Defense. Visit World Water and Power at http://www.worldwater.com/ and ENTECH at http://www.entechsolar.com/