Intelligence Brief

Cool Earth Solar continues to be in news for its unconventional approach

6 January 2009

Cool Earth Solar has explained how it will be able to sell electricity to California's grid for 11 cents a kilowatt-hour and "still turn a tidy profit".
 
The company, which has chosen an unconventional approach to forming and pointing mirrors in its CPV technology, uses metallised plastic films and instead of using ribs, trusswork, or material heft to maintain the mirror shape, uses active inflation air.
 
In a report filed by Economist.com, Cool Earth Solar CEO Rob Lamkin, who is scheduled to speak during CPV Summit USA 2009 (scheduled to take place on February 3-4 in San Diego), has explained how one can get a device whose installation costs only $1 per watt of generating capacity.
 
The same report underlines that Cool Earth's balloons have a diameter of about two-and-a-half metres. The kilogram of plastic from which each balloon is made costs about $2.
 
"The cell, whose cost is a more closely guarded secret, is 15-20cm across and is water-cooled. That is necessary because the balloon concentrates sunlight up to 400 times, and without this cooling it would quickly burn out. Like a more conventional mirror, a solar balloon of this sort will have to be turned to face the sun as it moves through the sky, and Cool Earth is now testing various ways of doing this. However, the focus of the light on the solar cell can also be fine-tuned by changing the air-pressure within the balloon, and thus the curvature of the mirror," it reported.
 
It adds that the plans for selling electricity to California's grid for 11 cents a kilowatt-hour soon will be put to the test as Cool Earth plans to open a 1-megawatt plant this summer.
 
CPV Summit 2009, San Diego
 
CPV Summit 2009 is scheduled to take place in San Diego (February 3-4, 2009). For more information, click here:
http://www.cpvtoday.com/usa/programme.shtml
 
or Contact: Joshua Bull by email josh@cpvtoday.com