University of Arizona device could make solar power cheaper

Oct 31 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson

The University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab has produced the first prototype of a solar device that inventor Roger Angel hopes will eventually produce electricity from the sun at a price rivaling the cheapest fossil fuels.

Angel's design uses mirrors -- 21 segmants arrayed in a parabola on a light-weight aluminum frame -- to focus the sun's light on a small solar cell.

The first prototype will be shipped next week to Raytheon Missile Systems which could use the design to build portable solar generators for battlefield deployment, said Eric Betterton, a UA professor of atmospheric sciences who is principal investigator for the project.

The prototype, developed by the UA with grants from Science Foundation Arizona, cost about $300,000 to engineer and assemble, with its mirrors forged individually in the mirror lab and hand-coated.

Angel, the Mirror Lab's founder and director, said the device uses only about $200 worth of glass and could eventually be mass-produced for the $1,500 cost that would make it capable of producing energy for $1 a watt, making it as cheap as coal-burning electrical plants.