ecogeneration.com.au
July/August 2010
The Alice Springs Airport Solar Power Station is the second of five large-scale projects undertaken as part of the Alice Solar City program. The 235kW facility is the first SolFocus concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) facility to be constructed in Australia. The 28 dual axis tracking arrays will provide the airport with approximately 28% of its total electricity requirements.
Technology
In areas of high solar resource such as Alice Springs, tracking CPV technology delivers good value for money due to its high power output throughout the day. SolFocus CPV systems are designed to deliver the lowest levelised cost of energy of any solar power-generating systems in regions with high sunlight and low cloud cover.
By optically gathering a large area of sunlight and delivering it onto a small area of high-efficiency solar cell material, the systems deliver high power levels from panels made predominantly from readily available, low-cost materials like glass and aluminium. The small amount of multi-junction solar cells incorporated into the system provides high levels of efficiency in converting light to electricity.
The basic unit of the SolFocus CPV system is a 300 millimetre diameter power unit. Each power unit includes a primary mirror, secondary mirror, non-imaging optical rod and high-efficiency PV cell of approximately 1 square centimetre. A panel is comprised of 20 individual power units, each delivering 15–17 watts of power to the system. The modules are mounted on an aluminium back pan, and are enclosed with a front glass to protect components and facilitate cleaning.
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