[RE-wrenches] Golden Genesis question

[Tom Elliot]

Golden Genesis questionOne thing, Golden Genesis was playing around with 
cadmium telluride thin film and they made a bunch of them, sending them to 
locations all over the world before they decided to cancel production. 
There was a huge array of them in an off-grid community west of Golden off 
I-70 called York Gulch (nothing organized, just an off-grid area where 
everyone had some alternative power source).  That array ran a couple of 48 
volt Trace inverters and powered a pretty good sized house.

When they shut down production the outfit that sold them the fabrication 
equipment bought back all the production equipment on the condition that 
they could also have all the modules that had been produced and were not in 
use.  Sometime around the millenium they then put an ad in the Denver papers 
offering modules for sale pretty cheap and I  purchased a truckload of them 
for practically nothing.  The modules were 2'x2' square and extremely heavy. 
They also were made with untempered plate glass and could break if handled 
wrong.

The panels had a 24 volt output but their power rating varied from panel to 
panel with the idea being to create a big array, measure the output and size 
for that.  Not very handy from a design standpoint.   The individual panels 
or small arrays of them made for great small systems, I used a couple of 
panels to charge the batteries for my trolling motor.

Tom

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Allan Sindelar
  To: 'RE-wrenches'
  Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 10:59 AM
  Subject: [RE-wrenches] Golden Genesis question


  Old time Wrenches, I need a history lesson, please.

  We removed a Y2K system installed by someone else, before a home was put 
on the market. All equipment was resold.

  The array consisted of ten Golden Genesis 12V 120W modules. Six were sold 
with racks, but four went to one of our existing customers. I ordered a DP&W 
pole-top rack for them.

  When the time came to install them the rack didn't fit. We redrilled holes 
and it all went together, but I was ready to rake DP&W over the coals until 
I discovered that the mistake was mine: the terminal circuit board inside a 
j-box showed that these were actually Astropower AP120s. I had assumed that 
these were the common KC-120s of that time, that had been private-labeled 
with Golden Genesis' name.

  Golden Genesis was a Coors Brewing (of Golden, Colorado) spinoff that got 
into PV for a few years around that time. My understanding is that they 
bought the entire Photocomm name and distribution network, as well as played 
with thin-film development for awhile (gallium arsenide?). Photocomm had 
been the U.S. distributor for Kyocera for years. Eventually GG sold out to 
Kyocera USA, which is what we have now.

  Who can fill me in on all this? Joel?

  Allan Sindelar
  allan_(at)_positiveenergysolar.com
  NABCEP certified solar PV installer
  Positive Energy, Inc.
  3225A Richards Lane
  Santa Fe NM 87507
  505 424-1112



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