Entech Solar, a Texas company with solar projects in more than twenty countries, has has completed a preliminary design review and prototype of its next-generation concentrating solar panel, the ThermaVolt II, which combines concentrating photovoltaic and thermal technologies. The company says its product delivers four to five times the amount of energy of traditional photovoltaic systems and costs less to produce.
The ThermaVolt II uses proprietary arched Fresnel lenses to concentrate sunlight about 20 times onto the solar cells, saving about 95% of the relatively expensive silicon cell material.
Normally, this would cause the PV arrays to can get extremely hot. This energy is usually wasted but the ThermaVolt system uses the heat to deliver power and heating from the same unit.
The panels are designed to be picked up and installed by workers in the same fashion as traditional flat-plate PV panels and are made to standard flat-plate dimensions which are easily compatible with existing trackers in the marketplace.