GreenVolts lands agreement with PG&E

Solar concentrator startup GreenVolts has landed a first commercial agreement.

The company has reached a deal with California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).

GreenVolts' GV1 solar plant, to be located on eight acres in Tracy, California and be operational by 2009, is to provide PG&E’s customers with two megawatts of renewable power.

The company’s patent-pending high concentration photovoltaic system concentrates 625 suns of energy onto a highly efficient solar cell and requires only half the land area of conventional flat panel photovoltaic technologies.

The company’s complete systems approach reduces both the initial infrastructure cost and, even more importantly, the ongoing levelized cost of energy, GreenVolts said.

“When completed, the GV1 project will be the largest concentrator photovoltaic project in the world,” said Bob Cart, founder and CEO of GreenVolts.

“Concentrators continue to hold the greatest promise for economical solar power by making solar energy cost competitive with natural gas during peak daytime hours.”

GreenVolts recently announced it was entering into a long term technology evaluation with Pacific Northwest power provider Avista (see GreenVolts entering trial with northwest utility.)

At the same time as the GreenVolts deal, PG&E also announced an agreement with Cleantech America for its CalRENEW-1 project, located near PG&E’s Mendota substation in Fresno County.

That project is to provide PG&E with five megawatts of energy. Covering approximately 40 acres, the CalRENEW-1 project will serve as a peak solar facility, providing reliable zero-emission energy at the hottest times of the day during the hottest months, PG&E said.

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