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Do you know if there is a reason PV farms avoid concentrated photovoltaics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrator_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/w

Do you know if there is a reason PV farms avoid concentrated photovoltaics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrator_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrator_photovoltaics This should allow swapping out a small PV module and more cheaply upgrade a farm as PV module efficiencies improve in many small steps. One could argue that one would have to upgrade the inverters at every step, but that would be wasteful: just size the inverters to accomodate many future increments (if inverter lifetime is bottleneck one has to estimate future efficiencies of PV modules, if inverter lifetime is not the bottleneck just use the thermodynamic maximum efficiency to size the inverter once, and only upgrade the PV module over time).

pjc50 2y ago
The panels are so cheap that it's not worth fiddling with optics. The economics works better with as little glass as possible, just enough to protect the cells. This also killed tracking solar, which being a mechanical device has maintenance overheads. There's not as much mileage in panel upgrades as you might expect. It's not Moore's law, it's much slower, and surprisingly the rated life of inverters tends to be shorter than that of panels. Once panels are installed they're going to be left alone as much as possible (because that costs money) for twenty or more years.
- DoctorOetker 2y ago
  The panels are so cheap that the optics shouldn't be compared to other costs like the price of panels but to the price of inverters and installation, maintenance,... Look at the price for upgrading the solar farm over time, N times the price of solar panels may still dwarf the cost of the optics.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  > This also killed tracking solar A great deal of the utility-scale solar in the US uses 1-axis tracking. https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_2023_edition_slides.pdf https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_... "Projects using single-axis tracking have consistently exceeded fixed-tilt installations since 2015, and dominated again in 2022, with 94% of all new capacity using tracking -- the greatest ever."
pfdietz 2y ago
> Do you know if there is a reason PV farms avoid concentrated photovoltaics? Concentration doesn't work on diffuse sunlight, scattered off clouds, dust, or the air itself. In non-desert regions diffuse sunlight can be significant fraction of total insolation. Concentration is also more complex and can require cooling of the PV cells. On the plus side, very high concentration can increase cell voltage and hence efficiency.

pjc50 2y ago

The panels are so cheap that it's not worth fiddling with optics. The economics works better with as little glass as possible, just enough to protect the cells. This also killed tracking solar, which being a mechanical device has maintenance overheads. There's not as much mileage in panel upgrades as you might expect. It's not Moore's law, it's much slower, and surprisingly the rated life of inverters tends to be shorter than that of panels. Once panels are installed they're going to be left alone as much as possible (because that costs money) for twenty or more years.

DoctorOetker 2y ago
The panels are so cheap that the optics shouldn't be compared to other costs like the price of panels but to the price of inverters and installation, maintenance,... Look at the price for upgrading the solar farm over time, N times the price of solar panels may still dwarf the cost of the optics.
pfdietz 2y ago
> This also killed tracking solar A great deal of the utility-scale solar in the US uses 1-axis tracking. https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_2023_edition_slides.pdf https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_... "Projects using single-axis tracking have consistently exceeded fixed-tilt installations since 2015, and dominated again in 2022, with 94% of all new capacity using tracking -- the greatest ever."

pfdietz 2y ago

> Do you know if there is a reason PV farms avoid concentrated photovoltaics? Concentration doesn't work on diffuse sunlight, scattered off clouds, dust, or the air itself. In non-desert regions diffuse sunlight can be significant fraction of total insolation. Concentration is also more complex and can require cooling of the PV cells. On the plus side, very high concentration can increase cell voltage and hence efficiency.