COST REDUCING POTENTIAL OF PHOTOVOLTAIC CONCENTRATION

Abstract

Plausible costs of photovoltaic power plants of concentration are presented. Costs are based as much as possible on the recent experience of solar thermal plants. Efficiencies, on the existing world experience of PV power plants. The result is that the costs of concentrating photovoltaic plants should be of 0.08 ECUs/ kWh, about 1/3 of that of flat module plants, and of the same order of magnitude, even lower, than those attributed to solar thermal plants of present technology. For the future, high concentration systems based on Si or tandem cells seem to be the most promising, also in the range of costs of the advanced solar thermal plants.