Over 30 years of leading-edge research combined with a highly commercial team

From George’s first research to today’s product in manufacture, we have striven to deliver low-cost, low-embodied energy and low material use.

Stephen Bates

“My role has been to assemble a team of exceptional individuals with the breadth of skills and experience to realise Whitfield’s immense potential.”
Stephen Bates, CEO

CPV- the power to progress

No one doubts the long-term role that solar power will play in electricity production. Conventional photovoltaic (PV) panels are already an accepted way of beginning to displace conventional fossil-fuels for power generation.

For solar power to become the preferred method of electricity production, it must achieve so-called ‘grid-parity’ – the mainstream cost of electricity from the grid. The solar industry currently relies on tax incentives and special tariffs to sustain the higher costs of solar electricity. Whilst this has enabled the industry to develop and provides very attractive investment opportunities, the move to
grid-parity – where the solar market can expand very rapidly – requires a step-change in system costs.

Using lenses and mirrors to focus or reflect an image of the sun onto their solar cells, concentrators have made it possible to generate the same amount of electricity as conventional PV panels but with significantly less solar cell material - which means significantly lower costs.

Leaves conventional PV panels in the shade

Concentrator or CPV products rely on creating an ‘image’ of the sun onto a small, individual solar cell. For optimum performance therefore, they need to be installed where the sun is visible practically year-round. Place CPV between latitudes 40N and 40S (approximately), where there are sufficient hours of clear sky and sunshine, and it will out-perform conventional PV panels.

Fortunately, 40N to 40S takes in the majority of the world’s landmass, including most of Spain, Portugal, southern Italy and all the Mediterranean coastal regions, positioning Whitfield’s CPV as the potential first-choice for the lion’s share of markets.

A low-cost ‘sweet spot’

CPV products are characterised by the number of times they concentrate the sun and therefore how much less solar cell area is required. Low concentration systems (LCPV) typically use 30-50% of the cell area of a compatible flat pane by concentrating between two and three times. At the other extreme are high concentration systems (HCPV) that use less than 1% of the flat panel cell area with concentration levels of several hundred times.

These HCPV units tend to use the more efficient but expensive III-V cell material rather than silicon. Whitfield has developed a medium concentration device that uses only 2½% of the silicon used by a compatible flat panel – therefore identifying a ‘sweet spot’ for low-cost energy generation.

Compact, compliant, competitive

CPV systems tend to be large and heavy, relying on hydraulic drive mechanisms and precision engineering to achieve high-accuracy tracking. And the result? More raw material is used and installation is restricted to green-field sites where large underground concrete foundations are needed for support. This type of device is also affected by ground creepage.

But like a breath of fresh air, Whitfield Solar’s system is lightweight and thanks to its proprietary closed-loop tracking and low wind-loading, it can be easily installed in a variety of locations. Each one of our units automatically aligns itself to the sun even if there is ground movement or the unit is repositioned after installation.

Whitfield’s revolutionary platform is highly flexible, not restricted to one cell technology and is low-cost. As other cell technologies become cost-competitive, we will remain one step ahead by designing devices that reduce energy costs even further and offer greater levels of energy-density - desirable where space is limited.

Whitfield Solar

The renewable energy arena was revolutionised in 2004 when Whitfield Solar was formed.

The company was created to commercialise three decades of research into low-cost solar concentrators by Dr George Whitfield from the University of Reading and to tap into the wealth of opportunities this pioneering technology offered.

Dr Whitfield was joined at the Solar Concentrator Group by fellow founders Dr Roger Bentley and Dr Clive Weatherby. They focussed on developing the most cost-effective PV concentrator systems by optimising of the size of optical aperture and concentration ratios.

The research at Reading not only modelled the relationship between concentration, aperture size and cost but addressed the realities and challenges of manufacture.

Whitfield’s CPV technology competes with flat-plate photovoltaic (PV) products on four levels: lower cost, lower weight, lower embodied energy and lower-tech manufacturing processes.

Using a fraction of the surface area of silicon solar cells that conventional PV panels requires, Whitfield’s product takes the sun’s energy and concentrates it via an array of Fresnel lenses. This process therefore protects our customers from potential shortages of solar silicon and solar glass, both of which threaten the PV industry.

Although tried and tested solar silicon was used for Whitfield’s launch product, our platform is designed to accept other cell technologies - but only once we are confident our customers will be provided with a better combination of overall cost and output.

By creating a system that relies on a range of highly efficient, but proven, manufacturing technologies, Whitfield Solar can transfer the benefits of engineering excellence to a CPV product whilst opening the door to the enormous cost savings that are associated with these high-volume techniques.

Unlike other approaches to alternative concentrators, our core components will be manufactured in multi-million quantities, even at quite modest overall product volumes, ensuring significant economies of scale.

Not surprising then, that Whitfield’s talented development team are drawn from Europe’s automotive, consumer electronics and domestic appliance industries.