China's New Technology to Bring Down Solar Prices

China has proposed subsidies to encourage production of solar equipment and its installation into public buildings and spaces, helping to bring down cost to harness solar energy.
　　
A Chinese company has developed a sun-tracking solar panel technology to make greener streetlights, and develops Concentrating Photovoltaic or CPV panels more efficiently.Shuangfeng has more.

In the same way that a sunflower angles itself towards the light, solar panels on the street lamps in one Southwestern Chinese county follow the sun's path across the sky each day.

Every light along a four kilometer-stretch of road in rural Dazu county in China's Chongqing municipality is fitted with one of the panels, which use their increased efficiency to produce more energy to power the lights through the night.

The developer of the tracking device, Zsun Science and Technology Developing Company, is one of a number of Chinese companies trying to make solar more efficient and cheaper, as the coal-reliant giant seeks to boost its use of renewable energy.

Li Xiangyang is the technical manager of the company.

"Tracking the sun is essential to Concentrating Photovoltaic technology. The tracking panel can generate more than 30 percent more energy than a fixed flat-plate. This is an advantage," said Li.
　　
The high-cost solar equipment means that electricity produced from solar sources is many times more expensive than that generated from traditional fossil fuels like coal.
　　
However, Li Shaochun, chairman of Zhonghan Solar-Power company, a market operator for Zsun, said combining the CPV technology with the tracking system would make competitively-priced electricity from solar a reality.

"We are currently using tracking technology and in the future we will also use Concentrating Photovoltaic technology, because it needs far fewer solar cells. Therefore, we can bring down the cost greatly."

Chinese Grid firms' average power selling price was just above 0.5 yuan or nearly eight U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour in 2008. Li said he was confident they could compete with the standard grid price within 5 years. China relies on coal for around three quarters of the energy needed to fuel its booming economy.

In this way, experts like New Energy Finance analyst Chi-Chu Tschang stressed that other energy resourses can't overtake coal in a short time.

"I think coal power will still be the source of power electricity for most Chinese consumers. I think solar is going to play an increasingly larger role, but it's not going to overtake coal."
　
China's installed solar capacity stood at just 140 megawatts at the end of 2008, around one hundredth of the country's wind capacity, but experts expect solar capacity to have doubled by the end of this year.
　　
Shuangfeng, CRI News.