Small cells, big performance

摘要

The idea of saving money by using low-cost mirrors and lenses to focus light on expensive solar cells has given rise to a whole sector of the PV industry. Is concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) now on the verge of large-scale commercial use?rnAtop a meter-high steel pole, whole batteries of lenses track the desert sun, bundling it a hundredfold onto tiny - but that much more efficient - solar cells which convert light into electricity. Hundreds of these systems are set up in the Spanish province of Ciudad Real at the Institute de Siste-mas Fotovoltaicos de Concentracion (ISFOC) in order to demonstrate the economic feasibility of CPV.