Intelligence Brief
SolFocus signs deal with Portuguese utility
28 September 2009
Portuguese utility Águas de Portugal (ADP) has signed an agreement for the installation of 8.5 MW of peak power (MWp) of CPV technology.
ADP, which plans to invest over €830 million by 2014 in renewable energy projects, with a goal of covering 3% of the electrical needs, has chosen to work with SolFocus.
The Mountain View, California-based company is going to work on the project in partnership with Portuguese developer Dreen Europe. Project deployment will begin in early 2010 for the first 2 MW, with the balance of the project to be deployed in phases over the next four years.
A test array was installed earlier this year in one of Dreen’s Europe facilities, to allow the utility to gain understanding of the SolFocus CPV technology.
The SolFocus CPV design employs a system of reflective optics to concentrate sunlight 650 times onto small, highly efficient triple junction solar cells. SolFocus highlighted that in high solar regions such as Portugal, efficiency of cells used in its CPV systems “can accelerate the trajectory for solar energy to reach grid parity with fossil fuels”.
