by Rebecca Walker — December 17, 2008—SolFocus has announced an agreement with Concept, a c3division of the Samaras Group, to jointly develop the first commercial installation of Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) solar technology in the country of Greece. As part of the deployment, SolFocus will expand its Madrid-based European operations to open a subsidiary in Greece
Spanning multiple sites, the deployment will have the capacity to produce 1.6 megawatts (MW) of power using the SolFocus 1100S system, the company announced. The newly-released 1100S achieves unprecedented panel efficiencies of 25 percent, offering the highest energy yield of PV systems available today. The installation will begin in the spring of 2009 with the first delivery of power expected in the summer.
In the first year of production, the system will have the capability to meet energy demands for a small town with approximately 2,500 residents while preventing the release of 2,800 tons of carbon dioxide, according to SolFocus.
The SolFocus CPV design employs a system of reflective optics to concentrate sunlight 500 times onto small, highly efficient solar cells. The SolFocus 1100S uses approximately 1/1,000th of the active, expensive solar cell material compared to traditional photovoltaic panels. In addition, the cells used in SolFocus CPV systems have over twice the efficiency of traditional silicon cells. In a solar-rich country like Greece, such efficiency can accelerate the trajectory for solar energy to reach cost parity with fossil fuels.
For more information, see the SolFocus Web site.
