Current installed power generation capacity throughout the world is 2TW. Between the growth in energy consumption and the replacement of aging power plants, it’s estimated that as much as 6TW of capacity will be required by 2030. Relying primarily upon fossil fuels to meet this increased demand will have severe impacts upon the environment and natural resource reserves. Alternative sources must be implemented in large scale.

The most abundant renewable energy source in the world is the sun. Over the past three decades engineers and scientists have been at work trying to find a cost-effective way to harvest the power of the sun. Significant progress has been made and a variety of technologies have been developed specifically for this purpose. Traditional photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) were the early entrants, followed more recently by thin films, and concentrator photovoltaics (CPV). Yet today, the potential for turning the sun’s energy into power has barely been tapped. With a worldwide goal of having 15% of the global energy demand sourced from the sun by 2020, it will be critical for all of the solar technologies of today, and others in development, to continue pushing to higher levels of energy production at lower costs. The bottom line when it comes to solar energy is simple – all solar is good. The key is putting the right technology to work in the right place, to achieve the greatest energy output at the best value.

CPV is best suited to areas where the solar resource is high. In these areas CPV technology offers the greatest potential for:

• delivering the lowest levelized cost of energy (LCOE)
• providing the highest energy density
• providing the greatest output during peak load demand
• operating at high efficiency levels even in hot climates
• rapidly scaling to gigiwatts of capacity