News

26 June 2009

 

Concentrix’s CPV plant feeds grid with record 23% AC efficiency

Early this month, Concentrix Solar GmbH of Freiburg, Germany confirmed that, on clear days and under normal field operating conditions, demonstration system efficiencies of 23% AC (alternating-current) have been measured consistently for its entire 2MW Casaquemada commercial concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) power plant at the Solúcar Complex in Sanlúcar la Mayor, near Seville, Spain (which it operates together with Spanish investment partner and solar plant developer Abengoa Solar).

Concentrix was founded in February 2005 as a spin-off of Freiburg-based Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, and initially achieved the record 23% efficiency in May 2008 for a 5.4kW demonstration system at Abengoa’s test site in Seville.

Picture: Casaquemada 2MW combination silicon/CPV power plant.

“It is possible to reach these high efficiencies also in a larger installation and not only for a single test system,” says chief technology officer Dr Andreas Gombert. “At an efficiency of 23%, our concentrator systems produce almost exactly double the electrical power yield of conventional PV power plants,” he adds. Typical silicon modules achieve 13-14%.

The plant’s solar tracking systems have been installed with both conventional silicon modules and CPV modules, making it one of the first combination power plants of this kind. Concentrix's CPV systems provide 100kW (5%) of the 2MW of installed power.

Casaquemada’s 19 x 5.75kW trackers use first-generation FLATCON modules (commercially available since September 2008), which have a power output of 48W. In the meantime, Concentrix has produced the newer and more efficient CX-75 generation of FLATCON modules, which have a power of 75W and achieve an average efficiency of 27.2%. The firm produces its new modules using a fully automated production line with an annual capacity of 25MW (inaugurated last December). The building and infrastructure are designed in such a way that production capacity can quickly be increased to 100MW, says Concentrix.

See related item:

Concentrix inaugurates 25MW CPV module production line

Search: Concentrix CPV module GaAs-based solar cell

Visit: www.concentrix-solar.de