California-based Amonix Inc., is building a 2 MW concentrating photovoltaic system, at the UA tech park's Solar Zone. Amonix will use flat lenses to focus sunlight on high-efficiency photovoltaic cells, which convert the light to electricity.
The 12-acre system consists of 36 massive solar panels - each about the size of an IMAX movie screen - towering up to about 50 feet off the ground on dual-axis pedestals that track the sun horizontally and vertically. The design enables the light to be concentrated onto high efficiency uPV cells, cutting construction costs, while the tracking system assures maximum light collection.
"This really is cutting-edge technology - there is to my knowledge nothing like it in the country," Amonix CEO Brian Robertson told a crowd of about 100 attendees at Thursday's dedication.
Tucson Electric Power Co. is buying power output from the system under a 20-year power-purchase agreement approved by state regulators.
While concentrating PV systems have been installed elsewhere, Amonix's array is the biggest to use high-efficiency semiconductor cells known as multijunction cells. Multijunction cells, consisting of many layers of semiconductor material, use more of the light spectrum to generate the highest power-conversion efficiencies known. The technology was pioneered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and previously used to power satellites.
Amonix, which has been working to commercialize concentrating PV technology since its founding in 1989, has installed smaller systems using multijunction cells in Nevada, where it opened a solar panel plant in North Las Vegas last fall.
The panels used in the Tucson array are "the most efficient, most powerful solar electric generators in the world," Vahan Garboushian, Amonix founder and chairman, said in his dedication remarks.
The concentrator cells have produced energy efficiencies of more than 40 percent in the lab and 27 percent in the field, said Garboushian. By comparison, most production PV panels have an efficiency rating of 20 percent or less, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
While heat degrades the efficiency of other PV cell media - particularly common crystalline silicon - the Amonix semiconductor cells are designed to maintain most of their efficiency in the high heat generated by concentrated sunlight, Garboushian said.
Garboushian said Amonix is considering Tucson as a site for future company facilities. Meanwhile, the company and TEP continue to plan for a 12-MW concentrating PV system at a rock quarry on South Swan Road, to begin construction this fall.
Source: Arizona Daily Star.
No comments:
Post a Comment