Conergy Completes Asia’s Largest Photovoltaic Plant .

19.6 MW project completely on the grid; expansion to 24 MW already ordered

Large projects in 2008: 81 MW realised up to now, additional 40 MW still in the worldwide project pipeline

Hamburg / Seoul, Korea – The Conergy Group has successfully completed the construction of what is currently Asia’s largest photovoltaic plant. The 90 million Euro project, with a peak power output of 19.6 MW, is located in the South Korean city of SinAn, southwest of the capital Seoul. Commissioned by the Dongyang Engineering & Construction Corporation, Conergy set up the plant as a turnkey solution and brought it on grid six months ahead of schedule. Dongyang has engaged the Hamburg-based solar energy company now with the expansion of the plant to a total of 24 MW – an add-on order valued alone at around EUR 20 million. Conergy intends to complete this on site yet by the end of the year.

Conergy’s CEO Dieter Ammer: “Just a few weeks ago we successfully sold the fourth largest photovoltaic plant in the world with “El Calaveron” in Spain. The quick completion of the photovoltaic plant in SinAn shows that despite our restructuring we can continue to book large operating successes – and the focus on our downstream core business was absolutely the right decision for our company.”

230 experts have been working around the clock since 12 May last year on the 600,000 m² construction site in SinAn to erect this Korean lighthouse project. In the meantime, the 19.6 MW plant is completely on grid and producing 27,000 MWh yearly of clean electricity – enough energy for more than 6,000 households. At the same time SinAn is saving 20,000 tons of CO² yearly.

Jihun Kim, CEO of Conergy Korea: “The construction of what is currently Asia’s largest photovoltaic plant is pioneering for the renewable energies industry in our country. With its completion we are ringing in a new era of Korean energy supply.” The government in Seoul had created the prerequisites for this in 2002. Since then, Korea has been seen as one of the large growth markets for renewable energies in Asia. In 2007 alone, 134 solar energy systems were connected to the public power grid – compared to 2006 a growth of 163%. In total, up to the present day more than 160 MW of solar energy has been installed in Korea, including now “SinAn” as a milestone among the large projects.

Large projects in 2008: 81 MW realised up to now, additional 40 MW still in the worldwide project pipeline

Elsewhere in the world too, the Hamburg-based solar energy company is making good progress with its large projects: In 2008 up to now the Conergy Group was able to complete photovoltaic plants worldwide with a total volume of 81 MW. Since its founding, the company has now successfully concluded large projects with a total output of in total more than 400 MW – including photovoltaic plants with an output of 160 MW and wind farms with an output of 250 MW.

Yet by the end of 2008, Conergy intends to conclude additional regenerative large projects with a total output of around 40 MW. Numerous plants are already in the worldwide project pipeline for future years, including solar projects with up to 300 MW in Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the US and Korea. The company continues to plan wind farms in Germany, Australia, France and Turkey. 1,000 MW alone are to be realised via the joint venture with the Australian company Macquarie Capital. In Turkey the Conergy Group submitted 3,000 MW for approval the end of April. With this the Conergy Group is one of the world’s leading companies in the development, project planning and financing of large regenerative projects.

Tags: Conergy Group, solar electric power plant, solar energy, South Korean City Of SinAn, Asia’s largest photovoltaic plant

Disruptive Solar Farms With Inflatable Solar Collectors.

Livermore has always been an interesting place for me. I have been visiting Livermore for researching on disruptive technologies. But today I read about very interesting disruptive product that is actually developed in Livermore for solar faming, or large scale solar energy harnessing. The technology utilized is also disruptive as the methodology is. The solar collectors consist of inflated mirror concentrators which gather sunlight and focus it onto photovoltaic cells. These concentrators increase the energy impacting the solar cells many times over and cost orders of magnitude less per collected area than conventional mirrors or conventional solar panels.
The inflatable solar mirrors are much more cost effective to produce and maintain than the conventional polished aluminum mirrors, according to coolearth. The solar cells themselves are far removed from the conventional solar cells, dubbed concentrated photovoltaic cell (CPV), and kept cool using water cooling rather than large scale heat sinks or spreaders used in the conventional solar cells.This reduction of material use comes in handy when deployed in large scale solar farms, which the products are aimed at. If you have seen other solar farms, you know that the area is devoted to solar farming and nothing else could take place in these areas. But the coolearth design allows us to use conventional farms that grow wheat or soy beans to be used for solar energy harvesting. The light weight concentrators and high power solar cells are deployed in truss like structure, a series of support and control cables stretched between poles. By suspending the concentrators, vast areas of land can be easily converted for solar energy production, with limited environmental impact. The ground beneath the concentrators remains free for other uses, such as farming or ranching.
So do not expect to buy one and put it up on your roof top. The technology and methodology is targeted for large scale solar energy production. But you can follow the progress of the company and the products at the coolearth website. You can also read more about the Solar Power 2006 Presentation in PDF format.
tag: solar electric power plant, solar faming, large scale solar energy, solar collectors, photovoltaic cells, inflatable solar mirror, coolearth, concentrated photovoltaic cell, CPV cell, Solar Power

SunPower Corp. to Design and Construct 18-megawatt Olivenza Solar Electric Power Plant in Spain

MADRID, Spain, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SunPower Corp. , a Silicon Valley-based manufacturer of high-efficiency solar cells, solar panels and solar systems, today announced that its Spanish subsidiary will design and construct an 18-megawatt Olivenza solar electric power plant in the Badajoz region of Spain. Olivenza is expected to generate more than 32 million kilowatt-hours of power per year upon completion.

SunPower will debut its proprietary SunPower(R) T20 Tracker solar tracking system in Europe at the 70-hectare site. The Tracker follows the sun as it moves across the sky, delivering up to 30 percent more energy than fixed-tilt systems while reducing installation cost per kilowatt.

"SunPower is proud to contribute to the rapid expansion of the Spanish solar market using our innovative, efficient solar energy technology," said Marco Antonio Northland, general manager of SunPower's European operations. "Our customers are demanding the highest energy delivery and fast construction schedules, requirements we can meet with our T20 Tracker. At Olivenza, we are using the SunPower Tracker to expedite deployment, maximize energy delivery, optimize land use and reduce related costs."

Olivenza is financed by a consortium of institutions, including AIG Financial Products Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of American International Group, Inc. and a principal investor in the energy and infrastructure sectors, and 360 CORPORATE, a Spanish principal investor in the energy and infrastructure sectors, as equity investors.

This project will expand SunPower's pioneering footprint in Spain to more than 100 megawatts under contract. Construction is expected to be complete in the spring of 2008.

Tags: SunPower Corp, Olivenza, solar cells