Photovoltaic concentrators: Entry into solar market

The development of new technologies in the field of renewable energies is becoming a key issue for economies of the next future. The worldwide exponential growth of photovoltaic installation, recently pushed up in many countries by feed-in tariffs, is giving a boost to the research and development of new solutions in the PV world. Huge investments have recently been made for the installation of plants for production of purified polysilicon as well as for the production of thin film solar cells. A very interesting way for reduction of costs of the photovoltaic energy production, which has the final goal to compete with the fossil fuel sources, is given by the photovoltaic concentrators; this alternative solution consists of replacing the large area of photoactive material, which is the most expensive component of the PV panels, with low cost optical structures with the function of concentrating the light on photovoltaic cell of the small area