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.