>Soitec’s new fifth-generation Concentrix CPV systems incorporate modules with a 30 percent market-leading module efficiency (or two to three times the efficiency of conventional PV technology). CPV technology converts sunlight directly into clean electricity via concentrator optics and high-efficiency solar cells, offering the best design for use in sunny regions as it delivers environmentally friendly, low-cost, reliable solar-generated electricity. Additionally, the CPV system’s two-axis tracker allows a high and constant power production throughout daylight hours.

Ultracapacitors are energy storage devices that charge rapidly from any electrical energy source and discharge their stored energy on demand. In combination with a photovoltaic system, their function will be to act as a standby reservoir of electrical energy to mitigate the variability of solar energy generation.

This firming of the output of a utility-scale commercial CPV system is intended to reduce demand on the electric grid to fill in short-term solar valleys in order to maintain a facility’s electricity output. In addition to reducing the variability of a solar power plant, integrated ultracapacitor-CPV systems will benefit public utility customers by reducing investment in utility generation capacity to meet transient peak power demand.<