Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) Technology Gaining Ground

Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) Technology has found some favor in 2010 with some major projects and investments coming its way.CPV Technology which is a poorer cousin of its more illustrious PV Technologies like c-Si and Thin Film has found some attention with its low cost and high efficiency.US Startups like Amonix,Solaria have found some traction bagging some big projects backed by financial investors.Concentrix Solar backed by European Specialist Wafer Producer Soitec has recently announced a partnership deal with US Energy Efficiency Leader Johnson Controls.With c-Si Technology fast reaching its Efficiency Limits,CPV is looked upon as the way forward for the Technology to progress.CPV Technology works by concentrating the energy of the sun through optics and has the potential to dramatically cut the costs as it uses much less materials.The Technology slowed down because of the polysilicon price crash but has found increasing attention in the past few days

Note CPV like the Thin Film Technology saw investments during 2007-2008 when the Polysilicon Prices were quite high at $400/kg.With prices crashing to $50/kg in 2009 and 2010,these technologies ran into a lot of problems.CPV is making a comeback as traditional c-SI based cells are reaching the upper limit of their efficiency.Sunpower which makes the most efficient PV cells recently said that it would look at CPV technology to improve the efficiency of their 24% cells further.Note that Efficiency improvements is the most important cost cutting measure for Solar Technology which would lead to its mass adoption.