Breakthrough on solar power?
pp. 37-39 · Read in the full issue
Converting the Pacific’s abun dant sunshine directly into electricity by way of photo voltaic panels is not new, but recent developments by scien tists at Atlantic Richfield, the US$25 billion a year petroleum giant, suggest a massive breakthrough, leading hopeful ly to economic solar power generation by 1990. For many parts of the Pacific this research could have the greatest import ance.
Most cruising yachts, and many static installations on re mote islands, already have photo-voltaic panels at work to operate vital instruments and
communications equipment.
But, until now, even the best and most efficient of the panels were large and expensive.
The ARCO solar power divi sion of Atlantic Richfield has recently announced a new type of module called the Genesis which promises lower cost and greater power output. Using thin-film silicon alloy technolo gy, up to now mostly confined to small applications, like watches and calculators, ARCO scientists have produced a solar module producing 5 watts of power off each square foot of surface. Modules may be wired together, virtually without limit,
to increase an installation’s out put.
Modem manufacturing tech niques have also allowed ARCO to increase the automa tion of their processes and improve on efficiency in the use of raw materials. The result has been a solar module significant ly cheaper, they say, than con ventional models of the same power output.
The first solar photo-voltaic panels were produced in the 1950 s but they were laboratory items of great cost. Since then technology has improved and prices have fallen until today even conventional panels cost
only one-thirtieth of those made ten years ago. But, ex cept in special situations, the power they produce costs much more than most utilities charge ... about 50 cents a kilowatt hour compared with a U.S. average of about 5 cents. In the Pacific, of course, where power is almost entirely generated from expensive imported diesel fuel, the differential is much less, but still significant.
Figures on the Genesis mod ule are still being worked out, but its makers are confident they can quickly develop it to the point where it could pro duce power for around the 5 cent/kWh figure.
AWA regional manager Harry Powell, and staff member Nisha Lateef, compare the size of the new ARCO Genesis solar power module with a conventional ARCO solar panel. The Genesis is a 30.5cm square module which can generate five watts of power.