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ST. LOUIS, Missouri, US, August 23, 2006
(Refocus Weekly)
The Boeing Company will deliver 500,000
concentrator solar cell assemblies for power stations that generate
green power for remote communities in Australia.
The U.S. firm has signed a multi-million dollar contract to
supply concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) cell assemblies to Solar
Systems of Hawthorn, Victoria, an Australian company that generates
electricity from solar energy. The cells will be manufactured by
Spectrolab of Sylmar, California, a subsidiary of Boeing, with
deliveries to start later this year.
The solar cell assemblies will be capable of generating 11 MW of
green power, enough for 3,500 homes. The contract continues an
earlier relationship between the two companies; in April, they
brought the world's first full-scale ultra-high efficiency 35 kW
solar generator online in Australia.
“For the past 50 years, Spectrolab has been a leader in space-based
solar cells” and is the world's largest producer of space and
terrestrial concentrating solar cells, says president David
Lillington. “We have leveraged our expertise in space photovoltaic
products and created terrestrial concentrating solar cells with
record-breaking efficiencies averaging above 35%. We are now
partnering with the best of industry and making great strides in
reducing the cost of solar energy to homes and businesses
worldwide.”
“The breakthrough demonstrated by this fully operating, full-scale
system shows the potential for CPV to dramatically change the
economics of solar power,” explains Dave Holland of Solar Systems.
“We expect this to be the first commercial phase of a very large and
valuable relationship; our partnership with Spectrolab represents a
new level of cooperation toward the common goal of meeting the
community's power needs with clean, green electricity.”
The concentrators use sun trackers and a number of remote
communities are using the dishes in ‘solar farms’ to generate power
during the day. A significant advantage of concentrators is that
fewer solar cells are required for power output, and large areas of
semiconductor material can be replaced with lower-cost concentration
devices. The higher cost of ultra high efficiency multi-junction
cells is offset by the need for fewer cells and the efficiency of
multi-junction cells requires only a fraction of the cell area
compared with crystalline silicon or thin-film flat-plate designs.
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