We here at Amonix would like to take a minute to recognize the great work of three local high school students who recently featured Amonix in their video message to the president as a submission to the annual C-SPAN StudentCam competition (link). Destin Bigsby, Carl Olson, and Kieran Reiser of Long Beach Polytechnic High School submitted their mini-documentary titled “Renewable Energy” which highlights the importance of renewable energy to the future success and prosperity of America and the world. Out of nearly 2000 entries, their submission was awarded 3rd place and will be featured on national television on April 4th at 6:50AM on C-SPAN. Amonix was proud to support the team which features an interview with Director of Advanced Technology Adam Plesniak at the Amonix headquarters in Seal Beach, CA. Congratulations to Destin, Carl and Kieran and all involved family and friends for the excellent work and an impressive finish!

http://studentcam.viddler.com/videos/watch.php?id=d39d8f6f

Regards,

Adam Plesniak
Amonix
Director, Advanced Technology

Adam Plesniak
Director, Advanced Technology at Amonix

Now, at this point a well-rounded technologist might say, “Ok, this is all well and good but a technology cannot be expected to continue to improve without steady support from the market to motivate continued development.”  As volatile as the terrestrial solar market can be, multi-junction cells have a stable customer source from space based applications where satellites continue to require more power in smaller packages.  Need for power density in space has funded the bulk of efficiency improvement in multi-junction cells since their inception, and multi-junction cell efficiency records have increased in absolute conversion efficiency at about 1%/yr steadily for the last 10 years.  Compare this to a rate of ~0.1%/ yr of absolute efficiency gain for Si cells, an order of magnitude less than multi-junctions.

Adam Plesniak
Director, Advanced Technology at Amonix

At several recent events, Amonix CTO and Founder Vahan Garboushian has been fond of telling an always attentive audience that Amonix CPV technology has “plenty of headroom.”  We here on the R&D side of Amonix wanted to take a moment to explain that this statement did not come from our marketing department, and was indeed derived from the fundamentals of CPV science and engineering.  We hope you leave the post as excited as we are about the future of CPV and the potential for continued gains in the years to come.

Brian Robertson
1973-2011
 
Today we remember the life and accomplishments of Brian Robertson, our chief executive officer, who died yesterday when the airplane he was piloting crashed in Pennsylvania. Brian was flying there to join his family for the holidays. We wish Brian’s wife Eileen and their three children peace and strength as they cope with their loss.
 
Brian was an energetic, charismatic leader with such drive and ambition. He was devoted to establishing the commercial viability of CPV in this huge arena of solar energy; it was impossible not to get drawn into his passion for its potential. We will continue on the path to realize his dream.
 
We are devastated by this tragedy. Brian was an incredible leader, and our heart goes out to his family.
 
Surviving Brian are his parents David and Donna Robertson, his sister Julie, his wife Eileen and children, Melanie, Brooke and Max.

For those who wish to make a donation in Brian's honor, the following foundation has been set up:

‘Brian D. Robertson Foundation’

One of the great benefits of Amonix CPV solar power systems is that they don't use any water in the production of electricity, unlike many energy generating sources. 

Check out this blog post from Kevin Furgeson, NY Times Energy Blogger regarding the abundant amount of water used to create electricity:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/water-needs-electricity-needs-water/

Water Use Comparison of Solar Technologies

By Brian Robertson, Amonix CEO

If nuclear can do it, why not solar?

Nuclear breeder reactors yield more energy than they consume by producing high-grade plutonium that can power other reactors. At our North Las Vegas production facility, we’re spinning a solar industry version of breeder reactors –solar energy that begets more solar energy.

Our recently Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design)-certified 214,000 square foot North Las Vegas manufacturing facility will be  powered by eight Amonix® MegaModule CPV systems. Installed as part of the building’s LEED certification program, the CPV systems will supply 100 percent of the facility’s energy needs. LEED doesn’t mandate that buildings be energy self-sufficient, but we thought it was a good– if not a downright obvious – chance to make a point about solar energy. We’re a solar company. North Las Vegas has abundant solar resources. Why not use solar energy to make solar energy? And seeing as it’s solar energy, there are no smokestack emissions or toxic waste to deal with.

I think we might be on to something…
 

By Vahan Garboushian, Founder, CTO & Board of Directors Chairman

As the solar industry continues to mature, market watchers no longer doubt the long-term success of solar energy. But as the market evolves, we need to make sure we evolve with it. Below are three ideas that the solar industry needs to be thinking about.

We don’t need to rely on subsidies
Governments around the world are subsidizing solar power development to establish the renewable energy industry. We shouldn’t expect governments to keep supporting it forever. Instead, the industry should develop objective productivity standards that consumers and policy makers can use to weigh solar’s environmental and economic benefits against its costs. Such standards will affect energy policy development in solar’s favor.

By Carla Pihowich, Amonix VP of Marketing & Regulatory

If you want to be a player in today’s international solar industry, you’re thinking about India. The world’s largest democracy has a vast land mass, population, and energy demand. Combine those factors with the Indian government’s National Solar Mission goal of installing 20 gigawatts of solar by 2022, and India is one of the world’s most promising solar markets.

Concentrated solar photovoltaic (CPV) technology’s land and energy efficiency make it a good fit for India. Land costs are high in India’s urban areas, where the demand for energy is greatest. Amonix CPV systems are pedestal mounted and require much less land than most conventional solar photovoltaics, packing more production into a smaller land footprint. Our CPV systems have 31 percent efficiency and 29 percent module efficiency, significantly higher than competing solar technologies such as crystalline silicon and thin film.

By Vahan Garboushian, Founder, CTO & Board of Directors Chairman

We expected U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s visit to our North Las Vegas, Nevada, production facility to be a big event, and it was. What we didn’t expect was how much it pumped us up.

You do not have to be around Secretary Chu for very long to realize that he gets solar energy. He understands the scientific foundations, of course, as a Nobel Prize-winning physicist would. But what was so gratifying for those of us as a company putting the science into use, was that he also understands the practical realities of turning science into jobs and economic growth.

We are at an inflection point in the renewable energy development. For the first time in history, the economic, technological, political and societal prerogatives for widespread development of renewable energy resources have intersected. The economies that will excel in the next generation will have national renewable energy strategies. That was a major theme of Secretary Chu’s visit – building a renewable energy economy. Secretary Chu was interested in the science behind our products, but he was just as interested in Amonix’s progress as an example of how government and industry can cooperate to create jobs and energy resources.

By John Grabo, Director of Business Development, University of AZ Research Parks

The longer I work in business development, the more I appreciate what the public and private sectors can accomplish when they work together. As proof, I can now point to hundreds of square yards of concentrated solar photovoltaic systems at the UA Tech Park that are turning Arizona’s biggest natural resource – sunshine – into electricity.

The 2-megawatt power plant facility at the SolarZone at  the University of Arizona Technical Park is the largest concentrated photovoltaic solar power plant in the country. It will produce enough energy to power more than 500 Tucson-area homes serviced by Tucson Electric Power. The facility will offset more than 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. It became a reality through the cooperative efforts of the University, local and state officials, the local power utility and Amonix.

The Amonix installation shows how universities can create the conditions for the right private sector partner to come in and fill a need – in this case, Arizona’s need to develop its renewable energy resources.