SUNRGI’s Coal-Killing Solar Body Slam
Stumble it!
SUNRGI’s approach to solar power hits coal where it hurts: cost per kilowatt.
It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of a new alternative energy tech announcement. CleanTech is inherently exciting, and there’s never any shortage of adjectives to throw around: groundbreaking, revolutionary, game-changing.
Words such as these are usually applied to the unveiling of some promising new material or manufacturing process. And that’s what is so different about the introduction of SUNRGI’s new solar elements. The technologies involved aren’t really novel — albeit best of breed. It’s how existing, real-world components can be used in an elegant new way to dramatically reduce the cost and physical size of solar power to the point that it’s cheaper than conventional energy.
That’s right: cheaper. As in the sort of thing which drags green technology out of the realm of doctrine and onto the spreadsheets of mainstream power companies.
Remember playing with a magnifying glass?
SUNRGI’s “Big Idea” is to reduce the size of a solar panel’s most costly component: the photovoltaic (PV) element. Conventional panels are covered with PV cells. But a SUNRGI PV array has reduced this to a handful of tiny wafers, sharply reducing its manufacturing cost. They make up for the reduction in PV area by positioning each solar cell beneath a magnifying lens which concentrates available sunlight by up to 2000 times, depending on the angle of the sun.
They call this technique XCPV: Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics. It’s a simple idea, very much like using a magnifying glass to start a fire. But SUNRGI says XCPV’s efficiency should drop the cost of solar to about five cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in sunny areas. That’s almost three cents per kilowatt-hour cheaper than the current national average for coal-generated power — without coal’s pollution or finite supply.
Keeping it cool
Of course, no solar cell could withstand the sort of temperatures generated by concentrated photovoltaic without cooling. This is the other half of SUNRGI’s equation: a proprietary heat sink designed to dissipate 3,000 degree spot temperatures without the need for complicated and expensive external cooling devices.
The overall efficiency of the XCPV system reduces the physical size of SUNRGI’s arrays. The company estimates the XCPV will require only about 1/16th of the footprint absorbed by current thin film technology, reducing the cost of land for industrial installations and maximizing the amount of power which might be generated by modest rooftop systems.
Coming in 2009
So when does this clever bit of industrial design actually get to market? SUNRGI already has demo units in the field, and plans to begin delivering its system to utilities and business customers in the next 12 to 15 months. If they’re able to meet demand, SUNRGI’s XCPV technology may be the first look at a green future in which fossil fuel power is passed-over for being as inefficient as it is unhealthy and non-sustainable.
I'm a fan of this site. It's good to see the positive things that are happening in green and clean ...
Hey Noelle thanks for the intrest, was wondering if you would jump in. I see from your resume that you ...
Shabaz --
Interesting points -- would like to read your site, what's the link? 
Great stuff! I rode my bike to work and didn't even know if was Bike to Work Day! 
Enter your email address:
Comment by T Baker on 3 May 2008:
Amazing!
Who’d have thought that all those little leaf fires we started was the secret to helping our planet!
This is quite exciting technology!
Thanks for sharing Chris… great news!
peace,
tj
Comment by Paul Smith on 4 May 2008:
Awesome Chris, how exciting to see something that could very well stop the cost obsessors in their tracks. Can’t wait to see the reaction to and results of this reaching the market.
Comment by Chris Baskind on 4 May 2008:
I really think this is a step forward. The really exiting part is that five cents per kw/h might actually be beatable as technology improves and production scales up.
We’ve really left alternative energy development too late: the cheap oil is gone, and building new infrastructure will take decades. But I’m convinced that if we get over the hump, the Age of Fossil Fuels will seem as quaint to our immediate descendants as the Bronze Age seemed to those who learned to hammer their world flat in iron and steel.
Comment by Marnus on 4 May 2008:
How about putting that heat sink to good use and heat up the water in your home/office/planet?
But I guess that will take another decade…
Comment by Greg on 4 May 2008:
@Marnus
Wow that has to be one of the best ideas I’ve seen in adapting a current technology to operate even more efficiently.
Perhaps a business will place these on their roof and some of the generated heat will be taken absorbed by the water and run used in the building. The only question is would the energy used by pumping the water be less then the energy of conventional heating? Anyone have an idea of the power necessary to move water up about 10 stories? Or how at what height (and temp) it becomes more efficient to use conventional heating methods?
I’m sure that on a large warehouse type building (low to the ground) this would be an excellent way to cover all of the hot water needs.
Comment by sonomabob on 5 May 2008:
well, no matter how you gather it there is still only a certain amount of energy per square meter falling on the site.
Is the method of conversion at the higher temperature much better??
Otherwise I don’t see how this helps.
Comment by Chris Baskind on 5 May 2008:
@sonomabob: It helps because that light energy can now be harvested using much smaller solar cells, sharply reducing cost of deployment and the array’s overall footprint.
@Marnus: Several people have suggested various heat-harvesting ideas. I can’t speak for the designers, but I’m thinking there are two reasons SUNRGI hasn’t done this: keeping the cost down, and prioritizing the reliability of their system. More stuff means more to break, though I agree there’s heat a-wasting.
Pingback by Simone Brunozzi » Blog Archive » Concentrated solar by SunRGI on 5 May 2008:
[...] this article on LighterFootStep about the new SunRGI concentrated solar [...]
Pingback by » Solar Power’s Catching Coal: Clean And Renewable Just Got Cheap What’s Required: Progress in the Commonwealth on 8 May 2008:
[...] Hooray for being progressive–the enemy of my enemy really is my friend, all because of a company called SUNRGI. [...]