Concentrator photovoltaics ramps up, as project momentum accelerates and production cells enter age of 40% efficiency

By Tom Cheyney

There are still a lot of “ifs” when it comes to concentrator photovoltaics, but it’s starting to look like the question of “when” the technology will start to gain serious market traction may be sooner than some think. With tens of megawatts of projects either recently finished, under construction, or in the last phases of project development — and hundreds more MWs in the longerterm pipeline — deployment of the highefficiency systems may reach triple digits by the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012. On the technology front, as many as a half-dozen cell companies are bringing 40%-efficient cells to market this year, which will help to further reduce CPV’s increasingly compelling levelized cost of energy.