Thursday 12 January 2012

Construction starts on demonstration solar power station in Mildura

www.electronicsnews.com.au

Silex Systems subsidiary Solar Systems has started construction on the first stage of Australia's largest solar power station in Mildura, Victoria. The Mildura power station will be the first full-scale commercial deployment of a grid connected solar power station using Solar Systems' Dense Array concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology.

According to Solar Systems, its technology uses advanced 'triple junction' solar cells currently capable of approximately 40% conversion efficiency, which is approximately double the efficiency of today's best silicon-based cells. It also benefits from the use of active cooling to maximise power output and lifetime performance from the solar cells. The first stage of the project, which started in December 2011, involves the construction of a demonstration facility of up to 2 MW capacity. This is scheduled to be completed in late 2012.

Subject to satisfactory performance of the demonstration facility, grid interconnect and planning activities, a much larger 100 MW solar power station (enough to power up to 40,000 average homes) will be constructed on the same site. This is expected to start in 2013, for a 2016 completion. The Mildura solar power station project has received financial support of up to $120 million from the Victorian State Government and Australian Federal Government.

Solar Systems says its technology is suited to large utility-scale electrical power generation using the proprietary Dense Array CPV solar conversion system. The technology is being prepared for commercial deployment in the global utility-scale solar power station market which is forecast to grow rapidly over the next decade.

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