GreenVolts presents at Alternative Energy Innovations 2007

[Redwood City, California USA]

CCTO 2007 Alumni Award won by GreenVolts

GreenVolts, Inc. founder and CEO Bob Cart delivered a crisp company Utility Scale Solar presentation on Wednesday, October 24, 2007, at the Dow Jones VentureWire Alternative Energy Innovations 2007 conference in Redwood City, California.

In a succinct summary of the GreenVolts business model, Mr. Cart said:

We sell energy not solar panels.

GreenVolts and PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) entered into a 20 year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the GV1 High Concentration PhotoVoltaic (HCPV) power plant as I reported in GreenVolts does it again with 2MW Solar Electric Plant deal with PG&E (revised to 2.5MWp) or see the press release, PG&E Adds Utility-Scale Solar Projects to Its Power Mix.

As I have been covering developments at GreenVolts since Solar Power 2006, I will focus on the deltas or what was new in this presentation.

GreenVolts does their own Research and Development (R&D) leveraging contract manufacturers to build their Off-Axis Microdish power units and two-axis tracking platform trademarked the CarouSol™ system. GreenVolts marketing and sales efforts serve two primary channels: 10-20MWp (MegaWatt-peak) direct utility customers and 1-10MWp project partner developers such as MMA Renewable Ventures, SunEdison LLC, or Chevron Energy Solutions for example.

The CarouSol tracker was billed as 3kWp (kiloWatt-peak) again like it was prior to GreenVolts Concentrates PhotoVoltaics in San Francisco. In addition, the CarouSol was positioned as self cleaning, self stowing, easy to install, and achieving the highest energy density compared to the competition.

The integrated self cleaning system utilizes a high pressure air blast and a small amount of water to keep the mirrors dust free. Accumulated dust on the mirrors can reduce the electricity production by about 15%. At night or during high wind conditions, the CarouSol will stow the power units by tipping them downward.

At 2.5 feet (0.76 meters) tall and 19 feet (5.79 meters) in diameter, the modular and light weight CarouSol was touted as simple to install because cranes or ladders are not required and poured concrete isn’t necessary for anchoring. Also, retrofit rooftop applications do not require roof penetration for mounting.

In a revelation regarding energy density, GreenVolts claimed the CarouSol system delivers almost two (2) times the power per unit area measured in MegaWatt-hours (MWh) per acre versus the one-axis SunPower (PowerLight) T20 Tracker and two and one-half (2.5) times the SolFocus HCPV solution at lower cost per kiloWatt-hour (kWh) generated.

GreenVolts is constructing a single shift 12MWp annual capacity pilot production line now with plans to scale to 60MWp by 2010. The pilot line will be used to perfect a copy exact approach for future expansions.

In closing, Bob Cart mentioned data from field testing showed promising results though it was from a brief two month period.

While a number of questions concerned the self cleaning system (cold weather and water in arid, desert locations), Mr. Cart did not tip any vendors for III-V Triple Junction Terrestrial Solar Cells or power plant scale invertors although he did say GV1 will use 500kW sized invertors reducing the potential supplier candidates.

Per the CCTO press release, California Clean Tech Open Awards Event San Francisco October 29, 2007:

A special CCTO "Alumni" award will be presented on October 29th to the 2006 finalist that has made most progress since last year's awards event in terms of investment funding or significant customer wins.

The 2007 Alumni Award will be presented to GreenVolts, a solar startup based in San Francisco. After winning the Renewables prize at the 2006 CCTO, GreenVolts has made enormous progress, recently signing an agreement with PG&E for a two megawatt HCPV (high concentration photovoltaic) power plant that, when completed, will be the largest in the world. To add to this, the company will be making a major announcement at Monday's event.

What could the major announcement from GreenVolts be? Could there be a new customer or round of venture capital funding? Towards the end of his presentation, Mr. Cart hinted GreenVolts will have an announcement regarding the later real soon. It would appear the timing will coincide with the CCTO Awards Ceremony.

For my previous GreenVolts Blog posts, click the Topic label GreenVolts.

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