 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founder | Eric Cummings |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | |
| Website | coolearthsolar |
Cool Earth Solar has developed concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) technology to build solar power plants. The company is headquartered in Livermore, California, US, and in 2008 closed its Series A round of funding with Quercus Trust as the lead investor. The company was founded in 2006 by Dr. Eric Cummings. Energy industry veteran Rob Lamkin joined the company as CEO in 2007.
Solar systems based on CPV technology focus and magnify sunlight onto a small area of PV materials to produce energy. CPV systems use fewer material resources than traditional solar systems in an attempt to lower solar energy production costs. The end goal for the solar industry is to achieve grid parity, so that the cost of solar energy is on par, or below, the cost of energy from traditional fossil fuels.
Challenges CPV companies face include the need for large upfront capital investment to develop and deploy their solutions. CPV technology works only in direct sunlight, as diffuse light resulting from cloudy or overcast conditions cannot be concentrated. This limits the regions that are suitable for CPV-based solar plants.
There is rising demand for solar energy in the United States based on government clean energy mandates. Many states require energy supply companies to produce a specific portion of their electricity from renewable sources. As of July 2010, 29 states plus the District of Columbia have state-mandated renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), and another seven states have goals, of obtaining from 10 to 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. [2] Utilities will rely on renewable energy companies to meet RPS mandates.
Plastic is a key material in Cool Earth Solar’s solar concentrators, which are inflated with ordinary air to provide structural support without using metal. [3] [4] Plastic keeps the amount of metal and glass at a minimum to lower production costs. Plastic is a plentiful, inexpensive material. The current global market for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film is approximately 1.69 million metric tonnes or 3.9 billion pounds per year. [5]
Each concentrator uses two pounds of plastic, and measures 10 feet in diameter and four feet in depth. The front face of the concentrator is clear to allow the light to pass through: the back half of the concentrator is reflective (coated in a very thin film of aluminum) to form a giant parabolic mirror that concentrates light about 300 to 400 times, while using up to 400 times less solar cell material than traditional flat-panel PV systems. [6] [7] The concentrators, like a magnifying glass, must point directly at the sun to work. The curved reflector serves to concentrate the light from a very large surface area onto a small focal point inside the plastic shell where a solar receiver sits (solar cells). All of the light that is striking the concentrator across the full circular area is reflected to the same spot, as long as the concentrator is pointed at the sun. The wide hemisphere faces the sun. The concentrators are mounted on poles in rigid rigs (ten feet above the ground); the rigs allow a computer system to move the concentrators as they track the sun on a dual axis.
The company is a member of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), and Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA). [8] [9] [10]
Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy, and solar architecture. It is an essential source of renewable energy, and its technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on how they capture and distribute solar energy or convert it into solar power. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic systems, concentrated solar power, and solar water heating to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light-dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.
Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors.
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially used for electricity generation and as photosensors.
A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that generate electrons when exposed to light. The electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct current (DC) electricity, which can be used to power various devices or be stored in batteries. Solar panels are also known as solar cell panels, solar electric panels, or PV modules.
There are several solar power plants in the Mojave Desert which supply power to the electricity grid. Insolation in the Mojave Desert is among the best available in the United States, and some significant population centers are located in the area. These plants can generally be built in a few years because solar plants are built almost entirely with modular, readily available materials. Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) is the name given to nine solar power plants in the Mojave Desert which were built in the 1980s, the first commercial solar plant. These plants have a combined capacity of 354 megawatts (MW) which made them the largest solar power installation in the world, until Ivanpah Solar Power Facility was finished in 2014.
Spain is one of the first countries to deploy large-scale solar photovoltaics, and is the world leader in concentrated solar power (CSP) production.
Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and solar tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight to a hot spot, often to drive a steam turbine.
Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2022, utility-scale solar power generated 145.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 3.4% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 204 TWh.
A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity, a solar inverter to convert the output from direct to alternating current, as well as mounting, cabling, and other electrical accessories to set up a working system. It may also use a solar tracking system to improve the system's overall performance and include an integrated battery.
Concentrated solar power systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver. Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is converted to heat, which drives a heat engine connected to an electrical power generator or powers a thermochemical reaction.
Photovoltaic thermal collectors, typically abbreviated as PVT collectors and also known as hybrid solar collectors, photovoltaic thermal solar collectors, PV/T collectors or solar cogeneration systems, are power generation technologies that convert solar radiation into usable thermal and electrical energy. PVT collectors combine photovoltaic solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, with a solar thermal collector, which transfers the otherwise unused waste heat from the PV module to a heat transfer fluid. By combining electricity and heat generation within the same component, these technologies can reach a higher overall efficiency than solar photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal (T) alone.
Skyline Solar was a Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) company based in Mountain View, California. The company developed medium-concentration photovoltaic systems to produce electricity for commercial, industrial and utility scale solar markets. The company was founded in 2007 by Bob MacDonald, Bill Keating and Eric Johnson. The operation of the company appears to have ceased in late 2012 and the website is deactivated.
Concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) is a photovoltaic technology that generates electricity from sunlight. Unlike conventional photovoltaic systems, it uses lenses or curved mirrors to focus sunlight onto small, highly efficient, multi-junction (MJ) solar cells. In addition, CPV systems often use solar trackers and sometimes a cooling system to further increase their efficiency.
There are currently many research groups active in the field of photovoltaics in universities and research institutions around the world. This research can be categorized into three areas: making current technology solar cells cheaper and/or more efficient to effectively compete with other energy sources; developing new technologies based on new solar cell architectural designs; and developing new materials to serve as more efficient energy converters from light energy into electric current or light absorbers and charge carriers.
Amonix, Inc. is a solar power system developer based in Seal Beach, California. The company manufactures concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) products designed for installation in sunny and dry climates. CPV products convert sunlight into electrical energy in the same way that conventional solar photovoltaic technology does, except that they use optics to focus the solar radiation before the light is absorbed by solar cells. According to a comparative study of energy production of solar technologies, CPV systems require no water for energy production and produce more energy per megawatt (MW) installed than traditional PV systems. Amonix has nearly 70 megawatts of CPV solar power systems deployed globally, including Southwestern U.S. and Spain. In May 2012, the Alamosa Solar Generating project, owned and operated by Cogentrix Energy, began commercial operation. This is the largest CPV power plant in the world and is expected to produce enough clean renewable energy per year to power more than 6,500 homes and will avoid the emissions of over 43,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. The Alamosa Solar Generating Project is supported by a power purchase agreement (PPA), which is a long-term agreement to sell the power it will generate. Under the project's PPA, the Public Service Company of Colorado will buy the power generated by the solar facility for the next 20 years. In July 2012, Amonix set the world record for photovoltaic module efficiency at 33.5% under nominal operating conditions, verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In April 2013, Amonix broke the record set in July 2012, demonstrating photovoltaic module efficiency at 34.9% under normal concentrator standard operating conditions, also verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In August 2013, Amonix announced it had achieved a 35.9% photovoltaic module efficiency rating under concentrator standard test conditions (CSTC) as calculated by NREL. In June, 2014, the assets of Amonix were acquired by Arzon Solar, LLC for the purpose of continued development of CPV technology and products.
The Alamosa Solar Generating Plant is a 35.3 MWp (30.0 MWAC) concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) power station, the largest in the world when it was completed, in May 2012. It is currently the world's third largest operating CPV facility. The output is being sold to Public Service of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, under a long term Power Purchase Agreement.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to solar energy:
California produces more renewable energy than any other state in the United States except Texas. In 2018, California ranked first in the nation as a producer of electricity from solar, geothermal, and biomass resources and fourth in the nation in conventional hydroelectric power generation. As of 2017, over half of the electricity (52.7%) produced was from renewable sources.
The combination of photovoltaic (PV) technology, solar thermal technology, and reflective or refractive solar concentrators has been a highly appealing option for developers and researchers since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The result is what is known as a concentrated photovoltaic thermal (CPVT) system which is a hybrid combination of concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) and photovoltaic thermal (PVT) systems.
The Eubank Landfill Solar Array is a photovoltaic power station in Albuquerque, New Mexico that consists of 1.0 MWAC of concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) and 1.0 MWAC of flat-panel silicon photovoltaics (PV). It is the only utility-scale CPV system utilizing Suncore third-generation technology that is operational and grid-connected in the US. A portion of the output is being sold to PNM under a Power Purchase Agreement.
