Design and Economics of a Photovoltaic Concentrator Array for off-Grid Applications

摘要

A second generation stand-alone 680 W/sub p/ photovoltaic (PV) concentrating array for low-power, non-grid connected applications has been designed and costed at Sandia National Laboratories. The array consists of six passively-cooled point-focus Fresnel lens concentrating modules on a two-axis polar mount tracking structure. The new array design incorporates several major improvements to the first generation design which was built and tested at Sandia National Laboratories. These include 50% more array area and a control system which allows unattended, fully-automatic operation. This paper discusses the array design and expected performance. Using a range of estimated production costs for small production volumes, the life-cycle energy costs have been calculated and compared to the equivalent energy costs of a 3 kW diesel electric generator set and an equivalent flat panel PV system. (ERA citation 08:001944)