Sungri Claims 5-7 cents per kWh for CSP Solar Technology

Using SUNRGI's propriety technology it is possible to produce large amounts of electricity from solar radiation at a wholesale price of US $0.05 / kWh is the lead headline on SUNGRI's website. The system is called Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics ™ or XCPV™.

XCPV efficiently concentrates sunlight so than it is more that 1,600 times brighter than the sun. This concentrated sunlight is focused onto triple-junction solar cells photovoltaic (PV) solar cells that convert more than 37% of the sunlight directly into electricity. The technology will enable power companies, businesses, and residents to produce electricity from solar energy at a lower cost than ever before was announced recently by SUNRGI at the National Energy Marketers Association's 11th Annual Global Energy Forum. 

"Solar Power at 5 cents per kWh would be a world-changing breakthrough. It would make solar generation of electricity as affordable as generation from coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy"

-- Craig Goodman, president, National Energy Marketers Association

"In a little more than a year we were able to develop and successfully test XCPV. We expect the SUNRGI system to become available for both on and off-grid power applications, worldwide, in twelve to fifteen months"

-- Robert S (Bob) Block, co-founder and SUNRGI principal.

What differentiates SUNRGI's XCPV system from other solar energy systems includes:

• Extreme Photovoltaics Concentration
• a propriety, integrated low profile technology for concentrating sunlight
• a propriety technology and methodology for cooling solar cells, allowing the cells have a longer useful life
• A dual axis tracking system that captures 175% more energy than a fixed system
• a low cost, modular system, module shown below, optimized for mass production and enables a power station to be distributed over a number of sites
• a system with less land area or "roof top" requirements than typical solar energy systems, 16X less land than thin film
• a technology roadmap for continuous improvement, the design is upgradeable, allowing it to take advantage of future advances in PV technology
• low-cost field installation
• a custom-designed system for easy operation and maintenance
• SUNRGI’s system costs significantly less per installed Watt than traditional PV technology

The system tracks the sun as it moves across the sky from sunrise to sunset. The performance difference between tracking systems and fixed systems is significant. In a day, SUNRGI's tracking system will capture and convert 175% more sunlight than a fixed system at the same advertised peak power rating.

XCPV prototypes have been built and successfully tested under both laboratory and field (outdoor) conditions.

SUNRGI XCPV technology does not depend upon silicon, and therefore is not affected by the silicon shortage.

I believe the claim for 5 cent electricity (wholesale price) is a first in the solar industry. SUNRGI has developed a low cost module that they claim is "optimized for mass production", has high efficiency and is space saving. They also are projecting that it will be available in 12 to 15 months.  That would be quite an achievement for a company that apparently has not produced a commercial prototype and in a document titled Executive Summary dated April 30, 2008 states that "a best-to-date manufacturability, small-scale modular design has been envisioned and calculated. Concept drawings have been completed" and that "Over the near term SUNRGI plans to continue its research and development activities. In particular, the company is creating a demonstrable performance simulation of its concentrated solar energy system that can be showcased to its customers."  I wish them the best, as such a product would be welcomed.

Comments

[Ted]

It looks like these produce a lot of heat as a consequence of the concentration of the sunlight and the big heat sinks off the back of the cells. I wonder if there is some way to pull the heat off for heating or domestic hot water. It would be like solar CHP.

[bigTom]

The math doesn't support the statement of 175% more for a tracker. Since the area on a circle versus a sphere is .25, a horizontal surface at an "average" location will receive half as much energy as a tracking planar surface. A fixed tilted surface, which is common for many PV arrays, will do better than that 50% figure (not counting the diffuse light). So the best I can believe is that the tracker might intercept 1.75times the sunlight of a fixed planar array. They should have said 75% more not 175%. Ted: There have been announcements of new thermoelectric materials. Thermoelectrics can convert thermal gradients into electricity, and the reverse process has been used in some niche cooling applications -including consumer automobile refrigerators. I have yet to see any figures on cost, power output, or efficiency for any of these devices however. In theory at least, one could use a thermoelectric device between the PV cell, and the heat sink to further improve the overall efficiency of such a device. But again data would be needed to evaluate whether such an improvement actually makes sense.

[Benjamin Cole]

I hope it works.

[bobk]

news articles are saying that without the heat sinks, the cells would hit extremely high temps - enough to melt the cells. That's alot of heat - you would have to think that Sunrgi would be trying to make these cells twofers - you get electricity and hot water from the sun from one package.

[Nigel Kee]

looks almost identicle to green and gold's suncube, who would appear to be further along the manufacturing and commercialisation path. it would be fun to put these two side by side and calculate the real world c/kWhr.

[Bob Wallace]

I'm not sure that the overall amount of heat is all that great and would provide a significant energy source. It's just concentrated on a very small point/piece of silicon.

[JohnBo]

Bob you are right. There is only so much radiant heat per square foot of sun light. Concentrating the light increases the temperature at one point but does not increase the heat gain per unit area.

Looks a little too good to be true. I hope their cost assumptions work out.

[bigTom]

I think these are targeted at smallish commercial/utility scale plants. The opportunity for combined heat and power is probably not that great, at least for initial implementations. Since the collectors are mounted on trackers, some sort of flexible hoses would be needed to connect to the unit. I doubt it would be worth the cost -or the risk of a leak. One advantage CPV has over concentrated solar thermal, is that it doesn't require water. Most areas that are favorable for large scale solar thermal don't have large amounts of water available. I think CPV and concentrated solar thermal could be used in a complimentary manner. The former provides instantaneous power, with sufficient thermal storage the concentrated thermal could be used for dispatchable and baseline loads.

[Cyril R.]

One advantage CPV has over concentrated solar thermal, is that it doesn't require water.

Dry cooling is commercially available technology at a small increase in cost. And there's promising new technology being developed now, as you can see here However, some water is needed for cleaning the mirrors; same for the CPV lenses. But this is a comparatively small amount.

I think CPV and concentrated solar thermal could be used in a complimentary manner. The former provides instantaneous power, with sufficient thermal storage the concentrated thermal could be used for dispatchable and baseline loads.

Efficient heat engines require high temperature; PV active materials don't like that. Low temperature thermoelectrics are a different principle, but so far they are horribly inefficient, and even developments in the pipeline don't claim reasonable efficiencies, so it's likely they will be inefficient for quite some time to come.

A possible solution would be beam splitting technology, where wavelength selective 'membrames' divert the infrared part of the solar spectrum to a heat engine and the other wavelenghts towards a PV device. This allows the PV to operate close to ambient temperatures even at very high concentrations, while allowing high temperature heat for efficient heat engine operation.

[power user]

Why would anyone one want to develop a 5 cents/kwh power, while the idiot premier of Ontario is eager to pay 42 cents/kwh.

[tom abrahams]

kind of a layman's approach on my part...but i'd love your thoughts on all of the gas tax relief talk on the presidential trail:

http://thevote.abc13.com/2008/05/running-on-empt.html

[mds]

Jim,
Actually claims like this have been fairly common in the PV industry over the last 20 years. You're just noticing them less because there are now quite a number of companies making realistic claims that are actually credible. BigTom points out their claim of 175% is misstated or false. If they have a 5 cent/kWhr cost estimate without a working prototype, then it is based on vaporware. It may remain vaporware or may get converted into reality. I hope the later ends up being the case. More often you see later complaints that reality sucks. Design looks simple enough to be cost effective. Might be worth something.
175% claim and 5 c/kWhr based on design work only. Count me skeptical for now.

[mds]

power user,
LMAO It's called profit margin, dummy.

Mr. Abrahams,
McCain is a Republican who doesn't believe in supply and demand helping to solve problems? Hillary will say or do anything to go with the way the wind is blowing that day! Aren't we already subsidizing oil enough with the war in Iraq? Leave oil/gas prices as they are. Subsidize HEVs, PHEVs, E-REVs, and EVs. Subsidize Nuclear, Solar (PV, CPV, & CST) , Wind, Geothermal, Wave Power, and maybe Tidal. Subsidize Conservation and LED lighting. Subsidize new battery technologies and other energy storage technologies. Subsidize cellulosic ethanol and algal biodeisel. Those are technologies to get us out of the mess we are obviously in. Lower taxes on gasoline and increase our consumption of oil? These are presidential candidates saying this? Maybe they should just share some of that bizzaro punch with the rest of us.

Increasing electric transportation (HEV -> PHEV -> E-REV -> EV)...powered by Solar, Nuclear, Wind, Wave, and Geothermal is the answer.

The time is now.

Keep oil prices from collapsing the economy while this transition gets going faster, fine. Cheap gas for the holidays is not a human right and it's counter productive, literally.

[bigTom]

cyril: When I said CPV and CSP were complementary, I didn't mean to imply they use the same sunlight. I should have said, CPV and CSP with substantial storage for the later component, connected to the same grid are complementary. Ironically the place where (ignoring clouds) tracking versus fixed array would have as great an advantage as their figure of 175%better is at very high latitudes -this might be useful for places like the base at the south pole (it is very expensive to fly in fuel). But that clearly isn't going to be a large market.

[mds]

Sorry, I must be grumpy today.

175% better might make sense if they are comparing their product to 20% efficient Si panels fixed to a flat roof.

Also, if they really can get this high concentration to work reliably it's conceivable their product could be low enough in cost. I don't know. Even if they just make 8 or 10 cents / kWhr this would still be a great product for much of the southern USA. It would be killer for Hawaii.

I wish them luck as well.

[g]

Excellent site here.

Hope you don't mind I added you to my blogroll.

Keep up the good work and I have you listed for my daily reading.
g

http://tenasillahe.wordpress.com/

[bigTom]

mds: The way I read it their claim of +175% was for tracking versus non tracking. The other factor of two comes from using multijunction silicon, such as those made by Spectrolab, should be noncontroversial. The whole point of CPV is to use cheap reflectors to allow the use of high efficiency, but expensive PV tech.

[Jennifer Cluse]

Benjamin Cole yesterday said "I hope it works."

It does, Ben, and *is* being done in Adelaide Sth Aust now by Green & Gold Energy with owner/inventor Greg Watson's development, the SunCube. Not an 'extreme' version yet, which it is only a proposal to date, but using current but leading edge technology in a tracking Concentrated Solar Voltaic (CSV) unit. See < http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au >, updated often.

Due to the extreme *demand* they have firewalled themselves behind their distributors, who in Oz, NZ & the Pacific are Zolar Distributors. See < www.zolardistributors.com > for tech information.

Three highly robotized factories planned in Oz, finance in hand, world wide demand.

It works!

[Mike]

The announcement and the report seem heavily slanted towards the rosy view of things. For example, the 175% advantage for a dual axis tracking system compared to a fixed plate collector only makes sense for Daggett, California if the fixed plate is oriented vertically
(http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/redbook/PDFs/CA.PDF).
If the fixed plate was slanted south at 35 degrees the ratio would be 1.14%.

[bigTom]

Jennifer: Does Green&Gold's Suncube have any relationship with Sungri? The SunCube has a superficial resemblance to it. Also wasn't there an similar thing called a Sunflower? The most elegant of these concepts IMO is the Solfocus device. Of course in the end it is not elegance that matters, but rather cost and reliability.

[Benjamin Cole]

Thanks Jennifer, for the info. I hope the Suncube works too. By this I mean a product not only works technically, but commercially, is robust and rugged, can be scaled up etc. As an amatieur, I also wonder why concentrating light (which means less light elsewhere) is effective.....I have also wondered when I see a large installation of solar panels, why they do not use mirrors to reflect more light onto the panels where practical.....

[Clee]

Their graph does look more like 75% more energy rather than 175% more.

* A dual axis tracking system that captures 175% more energy than a fixed system
* a system with less land area or "roof top" requirements than typical solar energy systems

I'm not permitted to put solar panels on dual-axis tracking systems on my roof, and all the photos I see of the Sungri panels don't show them on a tracker.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Sunrgi_LLC_Solar_Energy_Systems
Is the tracker built internally inside the panels?

Maybe not. This page mentions "System simulation of multiple module arrays within a low-profile, horizontal, two-axis frame structure."
http://www.sunrgi.com/downloads/Technology%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
Too bad it doesn't say multiple dual-axis-tracking cell arrays within a low profile module.

[Kevin b]

If you expand the picture it kind of looks
like the heat dispenser from a computer processor if it was submerged in water to heat or pre heat your water heater it would probably be more efficient

[Carl Hage]

[I posted this yesterday, but it was flagged as "spam", presumably because I included links to all I referenced. I am reposting without links.]

The claims in the Sungri press release and web site do not make sense. The $.05/kWh cost is a theoretical number, without any substantiations on this claim.

I read over the web site, and now see what they've done and what they haven't done. Sungri is another manufacturer using the Spectrolab 1cm2 cells, originally developed for space applications. There are a number of other CPV manufacturers also using Spectrolab cells, e.g. Soliant and Solfocus

What Sungri has done is developed and tested a lens, cell mounting, and cooling plate, increasing the concentration from 500X @19W (the Spectrolab concentrator) to 1089X @28W and then 1688X @37W using the same 1cm2 cell. They use a Frenel lens, which would need to be about 42cm wide square. Supposedly the improved cooling system enables the higher concentration, so they could use half the number of 1cm2 cells as the 500X concentrators.

As far as I could tell, they have not actually built a mount and tracker, though other (competitor) companies make them. It looks like other than making a sample module, all else is a calculation (paper design).

Now for the claims. The 1cm2 modules cost $14 each with interconnect, $10 bare (at 10MW/year quantities). That's about $.40/w, not including the lens, heat sink, mount, and tracker and assembly cost. To get $1/w (Nanosolar claims to be making them at this price), then 40cm glass/plastic frenel lens, heeat sink and box, plus tracker would need to be less than $21. A plastic lens in 100 unit quantities costs about $20 alone. I wonder what the lifetime of acrylic is in sunlight-- would they need to be replaced after 5 years?

The tracker cost is a little hard to find. Current pole mounted trackers cost $2-4K holding 100-200ft2 (~20W/ft2 @37W/cell), so on the order of $1/W just for the tracker. I would imagine that some innovative mounts could be used to make a tracker much less expensive, but it still adds up. The 40cm buckets could be hung on a pivot in rows along bars connected to another pivot, mounted flat on the ground rather than using a pedestal.

I can't understand how they would get 175%. From NREL measurements, Daggett, CA gets 6.6 kWh/m2/day fixed tilt, 9.4 kWh/m2/day with 2X tracking, or 1.42X (+42%). However, that assumes you have 1 panel or a N-S line in an open field. If you put them next to each other in a grid, they shade each other in the morning or evening.

How do they get 16X area reduction? They assume 7% thin film, 15% Si, and 37% XCPV. So you get 5.29x over thin film, plus 1.42 for tracking or 7.5x, except to get 1.42 you have to space the units apart, which takes more area. Even at 175% that's only 9.3X. The energy hitting a covered field would be the same as the fixed (or adjustable) tilt case, so it's really closer to the 5X. If thin film is 11% efficient, that's only 3.36x area improvement.

In outer space, a 3X improvement in area (and weight) is a big deal. I don't think area is as significant as cost/kWh for most land use. If thin film collectors can be made really cheaply, then it's cost-effective for roofing, siding, fencing, awnings, etc. We consider farmed biomass practical for transportation energy, but "inefficient" thin-film PV requires ~200X less area than crops.

As for water heating, the efficiency goes down with increasing temperature. It would be suitable for pool heating, or warming water, but not hot water. The cost of piping can be pretty high, though.

Though I wish this company success and am happy to see lots of startup companies coming up with new ideas, I can't see how the improvements made would yield the cost reductions claimed. The calculations of +175% (or even 1.75X), 16x area reduction, and 90-100% of rated power from 7am-6pm don't make sense.

[Birender Govil]

Sir
Its unique in the world. I am thankful to Sungri,s product. I can sell this item/product in India in large quantity.
Manufacturer can also write comments to my bgovil@hotmail.com Birender Govil