Bloggage From SPI, Part 2: A Hopeful CPV Panel

Eric Wesoff | October 28, 2009 at 9:07 AM 1 Comment Bloggage From SPI, Part 2: A Hopeful CPV Panel

I moderated a panel on Tuesday on Concentrating Photovoltaics (CPV) at the Solar Power International show in Anaheim.

I am an unlikely choice for the CPV moderator role as I have not always heaped praise on the CPV industry (see here and here). 

But I kept an open mind, and our panel explored the progress that CPV has made and the challenges that lie ahead.

Our panelists:

Jerry Bloom, a longtime energy and renewables attorney at Winston served as a reality check – reminding us that solar competes with 4 cent per kilowatt hour coal and cheap nuclear power. And that renewables face an uphill battle in making inroads in the dominant energy energy mix.

But the CEOs of these CPV firms, selected for this panel because they are on the cusp of full-scale commercialization, are driven and optimistic and they made these points:

NREL CPV expert Sarah Kurtz noted that the anticipated timeline for CPV has been far exceeded with Energy Innovations and the company's 1200 sun system claims a module efficiency of 29 percent. 

All of the CEOs expected the prices of the solar cells to drop. Lerchenmüller spoke of the parallel between those cells, which are essentially LEDs, having to follow the falling price trajectory of LEDs whether they come from Emcore, Spectra, Azure Space or one of the newcomers like Cyrium or Solar Junction.

And impressively, between the three CPV firms on the panel – there is the potential for almost 100 megawatts of factory capacity within the next year.

These firms still face the competitive challenge of plunging silicon costs and the difficult financing environment.   But, of the more than 45 VC-funded CPV firms, many of them doomed, these three hardy firms have a decent chance of surviving and succeeding.