Increasing Power and Energy in Amonix CPV Solar Power Plants

Large-scale concentration photovoltaic (CPV) power plants deliver the high energy production and low electricity cost that will allow photovoltaics to become a substantial portion of the electrical grid. High concentration minimizes the semiconductor material costs, while tracking delivers higher capacity factors and provides a better match to demand. In order to prove the net cost benefits, however, annual deployments must exceed the tens of megawatt range. CPV companies, including Amonix, are reaching this level in 2011. Ongoing performance improvements combined with aggressive cost reductions are the means for Amonix to win the projects that are needed to gain more economies of scale. Energy modeling has been used to increase both the rated power and energy yield. Solar power generators deployed in 2011 exceed previous performance by more than 10%. Rated output now exceeds 60 kWAC-PTC, and ac system efficiency exceeds 27%. A similar increase in performance is expected in 2012.