High-Performance Low-Cost Photovoltaic Concentrator System

At a glance..

The objective of this study is to develop a mass-producible, high-performance, low-cost photovoltaic concentrator system. A concentrator system is one which gathers the sun's rays and focuses them on a smaller cell area. In this case, the result is 20 times more sunlight on the photocells.

The details..

"PV Generating Facility at 3M Austin" is a technical book that describes the construction and operation of a photovoltaic generating facility. The author, Tom Penick, provides an overview of how this technology works and its significance as a growing field.

The project team members include U.S Department of Energy, State of Texas, City of Austin (which has four smaller PV projects going online), Sandia National Laboratories which helped with system testing; ENTECH provided PV modules and arrays while 3M Company provided site and prismatic Lensfilm.

Penick explains the objectives behind building this mass-producible high-performance low-cost photovoltaic concentrator system. He also goes into detail about each component used to build it such as lens housing for solar cells made by Solarex Corp., microprocessor-based controller calculates sun's position based on latitude longitude time etc., array contains sixty modules etc.

In conclusion, "PV Generating Facility at 3M Austin" offers valuable insights into solar cell production costs decreasing over time due to increased production volume. It also highlights how some electric customers are willing to pay extra for power produced from renewable resources like solar energy. This informative guide will be useful for engineers interested in learning more about photovoltaics.