On April 1st, 2nd and 3rd many of the worlds largest companies have delegates attending the Concentrated Photovoltaic Summit in Madrid Spain.

Companies with an estimated $600 Billion USD in revenues last year seem poised to unveil the results of 2 years of harsh testing of this new type of PV cell.

In 2006, Spains Institute for Concentrated Photovoltaics commissioned a number of leading edge companies to supply and build 3MW of electric producing solar installations. Companies selected to supply the new triple junction PV cell component included Emcore USA and Spectrolab (a subsidiary of Boeing) of the USA. A consortium of CPV providers has built the installation including ISFOC, Palo Alto Research Centre, IES, UPM, Isofoton, Concentrix, Emcore, Azur Solar, Solfocus, Spectrolab, Arima Eco, Concentracion Solar La Mancha, Sol3g.

The company who initiated the formation of this consortium, Solfocus, has some very interesting venture capital investors. Via NGEN venture capital investors such as Boeing, Honda, Siemens, Bayer, BASF, Dupont and Morgan Stanley all have exposure to what appears to be a truly remarkable technological breakthrough in the area of Photovoltaic electricity production.

The design of these new cells utilise three components. A triple junction silicon cell which has already been proven to be 40% efficient vs standard PV cells. A fresnel lens which is able to concentrate the suns rays in a small area. And finally a solar tracking system ensuring the PV cell has full direct sunlight for as long as the sun is in the sky.

The Summit goes for the next three days, and it is hoped that a truly remarkable breakthrough in the cost and ability of solar to provide commercial quantities of electricity is about to be demonstrated.