Prism Solar Technologies (PST) signs product development contract with NYSERDA
Prism Solar Technologies (PST) signs product development contract with the New York State Energy R&D authority
Long Beach, California, September 25, 2007
Source: Prism Solar Technologies Inc, press release
http://www.prismsolar.com/news.html
Prism Solar Technologies, Inc. (PST) has signed a $548,000.00 product development contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to build and sell bifacial photovoltaic (PV) modules that incorporate PST’s proprietary holographic planar concentrator (HPC) technology.
Prism’s core technology also allows passive tracking, which can achieve higher output in the morning and late afternoon while reducing the amount of expensive silicon necessary in a module. Prism PV modules minimize the use of expensive solar cells in our modules but still maintain above average output.
“As envisioned, this project will bring together industry, research and academia to accelerate the development of a new manufacturing technology. Also, it will include a New York manufacturer to help produce the new PV module. NYSERDA, Prism Solar Technologies, Inc. and Atlantis Energy Systems, Poughkeepsie will team to introduce these new PV modules to meet New York’s growing demand for renewable energy,” said NYSERDA President and CEO, Paul D. Tonko.
“This funding will allow us to accelerate our manufacturing ramp-up at a critical time”, said Rick Lewandowski, Prism’s President and CEO. “We are also very fortunate to be able to tap an experienced New York module manufacturer and partner, Atlantis Energy Systems to jump-start our module manufacturing.”
Bifacial solar modules are one of the few technologies that allow fabrication of PV cells in which power is created from the back of the cell as well as from the front side of the module. Any solar cell can be made in a bifacial format. The obvious problem has always been…”How does one get sunlight onto the back side of the module?” Such cells generate power almost as efficiently from light incident on the backside as they do from light striking the front side. This unique feature is without equal. In the past, cell manufacturers have tried to use reflectors or mirrors to get sunlight onto the back of the module. This however creates new problems since when sunlight is reflected in full spectrum, the increased light forces the cell and module to heat up. Heating decreases cell efficiency and module power output. The product resulting from this project will combine bifacial cells with PST’s HPC optics. Since HPC technology can spectrally select which portion of the spectrum it desires, it can allow the rest of the spectrum to pass through or be reflected away.