Airlight Energy brings solar electricity and heat to remote locations

The High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal (HCPVT) system, which resembles a 10-meter-high sunflower, uses a 40-square-meter parabolic dish made of patented fiber-based concrete, which can be molded into nearly any shape in less than four hours and has mechanical characteristics similar to those of aluminum at one-fifth the cost.

The inside of the parabolic dish is covered with 36 elliptic mirrors made of 0.2-millimeter-thin recyclable plastic foil with a silver coating, slightly thicker than the wrapper chocolate bars are packaged in, which are then curved using a slight vacuum. The mirrored surface area concentrates the sun’s radiation by reflecting it onto several microchannel liquid-cooled receivers, each of which is populated with a dense array of multi-junction photovoltaic chips—each 1×1-cm² chip produces an electrical power of up to 57 watts on a typical sunny day. The mirrors and the receiver are encased with a large inflated transparent plastic enclosure to protect them from rain or dust. The enclosure also prevents birds and other animals from getting in harm's way.

The direct hot-water cooling design with very small pumping power has already been made commercially available by IBM in its high-performance computers, including SuperMUC, Europe’s fastest supercomputer in 2012.

With such a high concentration and based on its radical design, researchers believe that with high-volume production they can achieve a cost of two to three times lower than comparable systems.

Airlight Energy has spun off a new company called Dsolar (dish solar) to market, license and sell the HCPVT system globally. Dsolar has licensed several patents from IBM in the area of hot-water chip cooling.

“With the HCPVT we are ushering in a new generation of solar energy technology,” said Dr. Gianluca Ambrosetti, Head of Research, Airlight Energy with responsibilities for building the new spinoff. “Not only is the system affordable, but it will create jobs where it is installed because many of the materials will be sourced locally. We expect to partner with firms around the world to bring a commercial version to market by 2017.”

Some of the initial funding for the development of the HCPVT system was provided to IBM Research, Airlight Energy, ETH Zurich and the Interstate University of Applied Sciences Buchs NTB in a three-year grant from the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation.

About AIRLIGHT ENERGY
AIRLIGHT ENERGY, founded in 2007, is a private Swiss company based in Biasca that supplies proprietary technology for large-scale production of electricity using solar power and for energy storage. AIRLIGHT ENERGY has developed an innovative and complete solution for the markets of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP).

Source: IBM Research