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Eric
ServerOp
Location: United States
Occupation:
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2006-12-06 11:54 GMT - #415 |
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"Solar investment veterans RockPort Capital Partners and Nth Power recently led a US$8 million Series A round for Practical Instruments. The company plans to use the funds to launch a product that it hopes will give it the market lead over competitors Greenvolt and Solofocus."
Answers by CEO and CTO Brad Hines-
"Solar concentrators use CPV technology. By using lenses and/or mirrors, you can focus more sunlight onto a smaller area and dramatically reduce the amount of photovoltaic (PV) material that you need. PV is the most costly part of a solar power system, so if you can cut that by 90 percent, as Heliotube does, it makes a big difference in price.
CPV also enables much higher efficiency -- when you're only using a small amount of PV material, you can afford the best -- which means you can get a lot more power from the same area of rooftop, or wherever you are installing your system. More power from a given installation means more savings on your electric bill. If you think like a customer in terms of payback and ROI, this is critically important.
There are a number of other exciting technologies coming to market, and some of these are also expected to be low cost, but unfortunately they don't address the problem of providing enough electricity to power modern homes and businesses. Driving for low cost is interesting, but driving for low cost and high power is a lot more interesting.
Two important measures of performance for a solar system are: (1) installed cost per watt of generating capacity; and (2) generating capacity per square foot. A number of emerging technologies hold promise for the former; we feel that our solution uniquely excels at the latter, as well.
Another problem is that many new technologies don't follow traditional form factors and industry installation practices, and therefore cost much more to install, maintain and upgrade. Only half the cost of any solar installation is the solar panels themselves. The other half, which is too often ignored, includes installation, auxiliary equipment and sales costs. Combining the efficiency advantage of CPV with a standards-based approach, our platform allows us to significantly reduce costs on both sides of the equation."
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/54375.html
http://www.practicalinstruments.com/
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