Sunrgi technology expected to result in $.05 kWh
By Susan Wilson
Sunrgi technology is expected to produce more electricity with less land, less infrastructure, and less initial cost. Every Corporation, County and City would benefit from lower utility costs and system upkeep. Although the solar cells can be used for houses, the initial focus will be utilities, companies, and municipalities.
Sungri technology uses magnification to concentrate focused sunlight onto a photovoltaic cell. The magnification greatly increases the intensity of the light that directly becomes useable energy. This process is called Extreme Concentrated Photo Voltaics or XCPV. XCPV magnification increases the light so that it is 1,600 times brighter than the sun. The ultra concentration of light means that the XCPV is able to turn 37% of the light into electricity. This also means that less solar cell material needs to be used. Since solar cell material is very expensive this keeps down the cost of the XCPVs.
Sunrgi has overcome the problem of the XCPVs overheating by using its new COOLMOVE technology. This technology draws the heat away so that the XCPVs are actually kept cooler than “their nominal operating temperature”. This means that these solar cells actually last longer than most, thus cutting down on upkeep.
The XCPVs also track the sun unlike most roof mounted solar panels. This allows for 175% more sunlight to be gathered by Sunrgi solar cells than fixed solar cells over the course of a day. Peek power periods would be no problem for the Sunrgi system to handle unlike stationary solar panels systems.
Just like eSolar, Sunrgi will be providing a modular system that can be modified in size to fit the needs of the utility or community. While eSolar will be creating solar thermal power with units of mirrors and thermal power plants., Sunrgi will be creating modules of XCPVs.
eSolar’s mirrors (heliostats) concentrate heat from sunlight on to the thermal plant. This turns water into steam which then runs a generator to create electricity. Sunrgi’s modular system bypasses the intermediate step of solar thermal systems by providing electricity directly from the XCPV. This cuts down on infrastructure costs because there is no need for a thermal power plant.
Land use is also reduced since fewer XCPV’s are needed to supply electricity than normal solar panels. Normal solar panels or photo voltaics turn only about 15% of the sun’s light to electricity. Thin panels such as those developed by United Solar Ovonic, may be easy to install since they are laminated and can be easily added to metal roofs, but these solar panels capture only about 7% of the sun’s light to convert to energy.
With the wealth of new solar options announced within the last few months, solar power should soon be available. The new processes and systems should be able to accommodate the needs of everyone from the solitary camper to the largest communities and corporations.
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