Anything requiring tracking is not going to be competitive with regular solar cells for simple mathematical reasons so I suspect this is not quite as breakthrough as the title makes it seem. In a nutshell: if you add the cost of lenses+tracking system you could buy more panels. That increased number of (passive) panels will be more reliable and will produce roughly about as much power as a non-tracking system would. The increased reliability is something very much valued in power generation, it also makes shading calculations and effects much less of a problem.<p>Depending on how expensive the ground is and what other restrictions apply you're going to be be <i>usually</i> better off by installing a passive system.<p>I've built a solar system with trackers, 2x8 panels, in the end I wished I'd gone for a stationary setup, the tracking was always troublesome (you need <i>two</i> axis tracking if you're going to utilize tracking to maximum effect, the lens system shown will definitely need two axis) and in the end produced only about 15 to 20% more power on these panels, and cost so much to set up and maintain that I could have bought another 8 panels and a rigid setup for the same money instead.
>With fields of over 1,000 of these devices, utilities would produce electricity at less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. That is even cheaper than today’s least expensive option: a new natural gas plant.<p>Ummm...<p><a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/xcel-energy-buys-utility-scale-solar-for-less-than-natural-gas" rel="nofollow">https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/xcel-energy-buy...</a><p>Natural Gas is ALSO in the midst of an unsustainable boom built with insane levels of debt: <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-30/shale-drillers-feast-on-junk-debt-to-say-on-treadmill.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-30/shale-drillers-feas...</a><p>Anybody who thinks natural gas is going to stay cheap forever, or even for more than a couple of years is kidding themselves. It's an awful long term investment even if you don't account for the environmental damage.
I am curious how they generated their cost estimate. Hardware costs have already come down so significantly in the past few years, non-hardware costs (aka soft costs in the solar industry) now represent around 2/3 of the total installed costs. Soft costs include installation and maintenance, which precise tracker systems would increase over the traditional fixed PV array. Hardware cost reductions are probably not hitting the low hanging fruit of solar power costs.<p><a href="http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2013/5306.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2013/5306.html</a><p>Another factor to consider with concentrated solar is that it is more likely to be affected by soiling (ie, dust, bird poop and other particulate) issues than traditional PV. This would mean even more cleaning and maintenance adding more to the soft costs. Soiling is a fairly common problem in areas with lots of sun and little rain.<p><a href="http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/pvmrw2011_19_cpv_winter.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/pvmrw2011_19_cpv_wint...</a>
Even if this particular entity doesn't make it, the people involved will have learned things that will be useful for future firms. It's not just financial capital that needs to be efficiently allocated.
Have any companies explored fixed, or movable mirrors as a simple way to maximize the light on the panels? Since mirrors are much lower cost than the panels I am surprised that no one faces the PV system away from the sun, and then points 3 mirrors at each panel. In places that aren't space constrained this seems like a much more efficient approach.<p>We have a heliostat for a piece of artwork [1] that keeps the sun hitting the same spot with only slight variations in angle over the year, and it only requires a single motor and gear train.<p>I am aware that the solar furnace type systems all use mirrors, but I haven't seen any PV systems that use this approach.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.janetsaadcook.com/BU/BU-1.htm#BUarc" rel="nofollow">http://www.janetsaadcook.com/BU/BU-1.htm#BUarc</a>
Yeah, this "breakthrough" has the potential to one day to produce electricity at a cost that conventional PV already delivers.<p><a href="http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Austin-Energy-Switches-From-SunEdison-to-Recurrent-For-5-Cent-Solar" rel="nofollow">http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Austin-Energy-Sw...</a><p>I would never bet on CSP.
So those 250% tariffs on Chinese solar panels have really worked out for us, right!?<p>The whole energy sector is so frack'd. Oil cartels periodically drop prices precipitously to drive competition out of the market. They pay off Federal politicians to create 250% tariffs, and State politicians to outlaw the the sale of electric cars direct to customers and make it illegal to use your solar cells during power outages. Oh, the irony of "free market" Republicans passing all these things. Our clueless president dumps billions into an obvious boondoggle designed to undermine the solar market, while real breakthroughs wither on the vine.
There is another factor with Tracking:<p>You size your array to cope with poor conditions, not best conditions.<p>Worst conditions are when it's overcast, and not surprisingly the best alignment then is pointing straight up.<p>So there is a argument that pointing straight up, actually gives more power when it's needed (which would make trackers redundant).<p>I have two sets of panels: One is mounted at the approved angle, while the other is flat on the roof. The flat ones actually seem to do better in the winter.<p>I guess it depends very much on the seasons at your location.
If the technology is so break through I am pretty sure it would be snatched up. While many technologies sound break through they are only such until someone with expertise gets in there and starts to pull back the layers.<p>There of course is that one glaring issue of, if an inferior tech is many times cheaper your break through will have to be many times more significant.