Start-up: Affordable solar power possible in a year
— -- A Silicon Valley start-up says it has developed technology that can deliver solar power in about a year at prices competitive with coal-fired electricity, a milestone that would leapfrog other more established players and turbocharge the fast-growing industry.
SUNRGI's "concentrated photovoltaic" system relies on lenses to magnify sunlight 2,000 times, letting it produce as much electricity as standard panels with a far smaller system. Craig Goodman, head of the National Energy Marketers Association, is expected to announce the breakthrough Tuesday.
Under its plans, which experts call promising but highly ambitious, SUNRGI would initially target utilities and large industrial and commercial customers. The company — founded by veterans of computer, digital design, aerospace and solar industries — would market to homes within three years.
Executives of the year-old company say they'll start producing solar panels by mid-2009 that will generate electricity for about 7 cents a kilowatt hour, including installation. That's roughly the price of cheap coal-fired electricity. "We're bringing the cost of solar electricity down to be competitive with" fossil fuels, says Bob Block, a co-founder of SUNRGI.
Solar power is acclaimed as free of greenhouse gas emissions and able to supply electricity midday when demand is highest. But its cost — 20 cents to 30 cents a kilowatt hour — has inhibited broad adoption. Solar makes up less than 1% of U.S. power generation.
An armada of solar technology makers aim to drive solar's price to 10 to 18 cents a kilowatt hour by 2010, and 5 to 10 cents by 2015, at or below utility costs. SUNRGI's timetable is far more aggressive.
Solar panels generate electricity when photons in sunlight knock loose electrons in silicon or another semiconductor. Other concentrated photovoltaic makers magnify sunlight about 500 times. SUNRGI says it can multiply that by four because it has a system to instantly cool its germanium-based semiconductor from 3,300 degrees to 20 degrees above ambient temperature. High temperatures can melt a solar cell.
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