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Chevron launches 3-year trial to find most efficient solar panel technology

Tony Chan | April 9, 2010 | 1 Comment

Chevron has launched one of the world’s largest trials of solar panel technologies, dubbed Project Brightfield, in a bid to identify the most efficiency method of transforming the sun’s energy into electricity. Chevron is now installing 7,700 solar panels from 7 vendors on 18 acres of land in California – a former Chevron refinery – to find out which of the seven solutions is the most effective.

“By bringing together seven emerging solar technologies, Project Brightfield represents one of the most comprehensive solar energy tests of its kind and is an innovative approach to evaluating new technologies,” said Des King, president of Chevron Technology Ventures, the division of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. that identifies, evaluates and demonstrates emerging technologies. “Testing competing technologies side by side means that we can better understand their potential application at other Chevron facilities.”

Watch Chevron’s corporate video on the project:

Chevron selected the 7 companies from an original list of 180 companies. Of the seven solar panel solutions, six are based on thin-film technology, which are cheaper than traditional crystalline photovoltaic panels. The seventh company does use crystalline technology, but in a more cost effective ‘silicon ink’ form.

The companies demonstrating thin-film technologies are Abound Solar, MiaSolé, Schüco, Solar Frontier, Sharp, and Solibro, while the crystalline-silicon photovoltaic technology is provided by Innovalight. Each solar company can access data about its technology, find out how well it performs in various conditions and compare it against a benchmark solar technology — a brand of commercially available solar photovoltaic technology — that has also been installed on the site, Chevron noted.

According to Chevron, the chemical make up and how the panels are made make each panel technology unique. Based on those difference, the company is looking to the one that provide it “the most value in the future.”

The installation will generate a total of 740 kW of electricity to power Chevron’s oil production operations at the Kern River Field, the company said.

Kudos to Chevron for adopting solar, and in deploying the trial to compare different solar solutions.

However, the trial duration highlights one of the most frustrating characteristics of renewable energy generation – the slow pace of innovation. For anyone who have been involved in the ICT sector, three years is a long time. Taking Moore’s Law as a reference, PCs and electronic devices typically double their performance in 12 month cycles. Three years would mean exponential advancements in both performance and power. If only the renewable energy sector would advance at the same pace, we’d all be powering our gadgets and homes with solar or wind generators the size of our handsets in a few years.

At the same time, it also highlights the vast differences between different solar power solutions, something that the telecoms industry needs to be well aware of when seeking to adopt renewable energy solutions for their infrastructure.