Intelligence Brief
Showcasing reliability and robustness of current designs in the CPV industry
13 January 2010
The CPV industry might have expanded very rapidly but now it needs to come up with successful long-term demonstrations with current design technologies. The last couple of years have proved to be an eventful period for an emerging technology like CPV.
Even as the sector has witnessed introduction of several prototypes and commercial projects, it is being increasingly felt that the CPV technology companies currently need to prove their mettle. If on one hand, there is no doubt over the fact that the industry is on the brink of growth, on the other, the industry seems to be hindered by a number of internal and external technological and financial constraints.
From a utility’s perspective, Sacramento Muncipal Utilities District’s project manager, Advanced Renewables & Distributed Generation Technologies, Obadiah Bartholomy, believes that that the CPV industry needs real demonstrations at scale of technologies that have a clear pathway to costs per MWh that are competitive with traditional PV arrays.
“The industry also needs public datasets of performance, with 3rd party testing to provide credibility and clear expectations for operations and maintenance costs,” says Bartholomy, who is scheduled to speak at CPV Today’s 2nd CPV Summit US, to be held in San Diego (December 2-3) this year.
Bartholomy added that reliability and robustness of current designs need to be shown in arrays of 10’s to hundreds of units.
“2010 will likely see deployment of large numbers of units in Europe and further exploratory arrays in the US. Developer owned power purchase agreements may allow utilities to explore larger arrays, but technology reliability must be demonstrated,” he added.
Challenges
CPV technology companies have identified that they have to work on their product design and manufacturing cost in order to combat rival technologies.
This will be a major challenge going forward as the selling price of competing technologies has gone down considerably. Overall, this is due to weak demand and over capacity in the industry.
Bartholomy says SMUD expects the price for ‘rival technologies’ to stay low and even decline as substantial new low-cost capacity has been brought on-line.
“Our expectation is that CPV technologies will need to show clear pathways to low $/MWh costs, through demonstrated high energy yields, high reliability, and low-cost materials,” he says.
Bartholomy pointed out that the CPV industry is viewed as being higher risk than traditional PV projects currently. While the technology has been around for a long time, successful long-term demonstrations with current-design technologies are in short supply.
“As a result, traditionally risk-averse utilities are more likely to opt for low-risk PPA’s with smaller capacity installations until there is greater experience with the current generation of technologies,” concluded Bartholomy.
Bartholomy, along with a host of other speakers, is scheduled to speak at the 2nd CPV Summit US. He will be part of the `CPV’s present state in the solar world’ session. Other speakers in the panel include:
• Edward Etzkorn, US Department of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
• Robert P Powers, President AEP Utilities, American Electric Power
• Tim Woodward, Nth Power
• Courtney McColgan, Associate, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
• Dwain Boettcher, VP, Business & Transmission Planning, Cannon Power Group
• Ricard Pardell, Partner, CPV Development Director, Wattpic
• Paula Mints, Principal Analyst, PV Services Program, Navigant Consulting
CPV Today
For more info contact:
Heidi Hafes
Events Director
New Solar Today
t:(+ 44) 0207 375 7206
e: heidi@newsolartoday.com
