[RE-wrenches] Concentrators

[Ian Woofenden, Home Power]

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Hello David,

>	The following is an email I received recently. I remember HP 
>doing a write
>up on Fresnel lense arrays, Michigan Labs, or something. But I thouight I'd
>check with the list if somebody knew specifically about "AEP".
>Dave Palumbo, IP&L

As far as I know, Midway Labs is out of business, after death or 
serious illness took out the founder. I am not familiar with AEP.

We had an employee of Eco-Energies in one of our NW SEI workshops 
this fall. The company is a division of PVI, which makes 
concentrating modules. What I got from this gentleman was that they 
feel that the concentrator market is going to dry up as the price of 
PV cells comes down, which is why they have started the new division 
doing RE system design and installation.

That may not be the last word on concentrators (and PVI's product is 
neat--much better than Midway's). But the advantage of concentrators 
is that they use only a small amount of PV. So they will only be cost 
effective as long as PV is expensive. Other than that, I see only 
disadvantages with concentrators. They are big and bulky, take more 
of other materials, require tracking, and are ugly.  ;-)

Ian



-- 
Ian Woofenden <ian.woofenden at homepower.com>, Fax: 360-293-7034
Associate Editor, Home Power magazine, The Hands-On Journal Of Home-Made Power
Editors are Professional Idiots - We misunderstand text so our readers won't.

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