Consulting-Specifying Engineer - September 2007 - (Page PP6)

© 2007 Caterpillar All Rights Reserved CAT, CATERPILLAR, their respective logos, “Caterpillar Yellow” and the POWER EDGE trade dress, as well as corporate and product identity used herein, are trademarks of Caterpillar and may not be used without permission. Diesel answers to every power question. Caterpillar and your Cat® Dealer have a diesel-powered generator set to fit any operation’s unique power requirements. And Cat diesel generator sets offer: • Emissions compliance • Simplicity in specifying and purchasing • Ease of installation and operation • Wide range of factory-designed options • Low life-cycle costs • Excellent transient response and steady-state performance • World-class fuel efficiency • Up to 40,000 hours between major overhauls • Single source for complete power solutions • Turnkey support from Cat dealer network NEWS & TRENDS Solar Researchers Concentrating Their Efforts As any child who’s played with mirrors and magnifying lenses outdoors knows, such simple devices, when paired with sunlight, can generate signiﬁcant energy. Researchers currently are looking at new ways to adapt similar principles to improving solar-energy production. Resulting products are showing promise in both improving photovoltaics’ performance and reducing overall system costs. A new system from Pasadena, Calif.-based Soliant Energy brings solar-concentrator designs common in large-scale solar-collector farms to small-scale roof-top installations. Instead of ﬂat panels, Soliant’s approach uses trough-like aluminum modules—each about the size of a standard gutter—mounted into a rectangular frame. A strip of photovoltaic material runs along the bottom of each trough and a lens-like acrylic lid caps off each unit. Some light is reﬂected off the gutter’s reﬂective interiors onto the photovoltaic material, while more is focused onto this strip by the acrylic lens. The troughs are designed to tilt from side to side, to track the sun’s progress through the sky. The Soliant units produce as much power as conventional ﬂat panels, according to U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) ofﬁcials quoted in a recent Technology Review article on the technology, but are less expensive because they use 88% less silicon. The company expects to start shipping its new system in late 2007, and it will be receiving up to $4 million in DOE funding to research second-generation improvements to its designs. Improving the performance of the photovoltaic material used in concentrator designs could make these systems even more efﬁcient. Sylmar, Calif.-based Spectrolab, a Boeing subsidiary, has developed a solar cell more than twice as efﬁcient as those used in typical rooftop panels. The new cells are made from “metamorphic” materials, a class of materials previously unexplored for such applications, which can, among other advantages, capture infrared light previous cells have not been able to use. Using Spectrolab’s research along with other product-development efforts, Boeing is promising to cut the delivered price of electricity using concentrated systems to 15 cents per kilowatt hour by 2010—today’s solar power systems come in at an estimated 32 cents per kilowatt hour—and cut that price in half, again, by 2015. The company is participating in a $29.8 million concentrated-photovoltaic development partnership with the DOE to achieve that goal. Diesel generator sets from 12 to 10,475 kW With service you can rely on, your Cat Dealer is there for you every step of the way. Need power in any shape or form? Caterpillar is equal to the challenge. To find out why, visit http://go.cateps.com/ff1 For more info, enter #404 on the Reader Service Card 6| PURE POWER // FALL 2007 http://go.cateps.com/ff1 http://go.cateps.com/ff1

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Consulting-Specifying Engineer - September 2007

Contents M/E Roundtable Cover Story: Airborne Superbugs Third-Party Liability Back to School Product Spotlight Codes & Standards Professional Practices How To New Products Jobs/Cliassifieds Specifier’s Notebook Pure Power Supplement New Technologies, Same Old Transmission Problems Wireless Battery Recharging Solar Concentration Renewables Tracking System A Mighty Wind The Importance of Load Bank Testing Quality Power for Security Systems

Consulting-Specifying Engineer - September 2007

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