A better way to catch the rays

Ben Marlow

KNOWN as the Frying Pan of Andalucia, the ancient city of Ecija in southern Spain is reputed to have once registered a scorching 52C on the thermometer.
Which is why a team of engineers from Whitfield Solar, a renewable-energy company from Reading, Berkshire, has been working there for the past 14 months. Whitfield is testing technology that it reckons could save the recession-hit solar-power industry millions of pounds.
The company has invented devices that track and concentrate the sun’s rays. Most current models are fixed and therefore do not make best use of the sun all through the day.
Whitfield claims its technology can not only create more efficient, large-scale solar-power systems but also cheaper models that are so light they can be moved or installed by two people.

“Our primary objective is to make the technology cheaper,” said Ian Collins, project director. “At the moment, the stuff on the market is heavy. We are replacing it with a cheap plastic lens focused on to a small cell that concentrates the light.
“Our technology captures the sun within an hour of sunrise so you can achieve up to 15% better energy use,” he said.
Whitfield plans to roll out the technology to a small number of customers after winning £2.7m of fresh investment from a handful of investors at the end of last year. It will be the culmination of more than three decades of research.
The company started life at Reading University under George Whitfield of the cybernetics department. In 2004, it was spun out and became a proper business. Since then, with several rounds of backing from investors, including the Carbon Trust, it has been trying to get the technology to market.
The tests in Spain have led to a small customer base being established there but the recession has encouraged the firm to speed up its plans to expand into other parts of southern Europe.
The company hopes to replicate the arrangement it has with Cobo, an Italian automotive group, that has agreed to make the devices in its factory.
Later this year, Whitfield expects to complete another round of fund raising. “We want to reach the stage where renewable energy becomes more competitive with mainstream energy sources.
At the moment it is driven by government incentives but we want it to become more of an economic choice,” said Collins.