page_title: Concentrator photovoltaics
section_title: Medium concentration PV
hierarchical_section_title: Concentrator photovoltaics / Types / Medium concentration PV
caption_attribution_description: English: This 10&#215;10&#160;mm HCPV solar cell was produced by Fotrousi Electronics in August 2011, claimed to generate 41.14 watt in 1100 suns.
context_page_description: Concentrator photovoltaics is a photovoltaic technology that generates electricity from sunlight. Unlike conventional photovoltaic systems, it uses lenses or curved mirrors to focus sunlight onto small, highly efficient, multi-junction solar cells. In addition, CPV systems often use solar trackers and sometimes a cooling system to further increase their efficiency. Ongoing research and development is rapidly improving their competitiveness in the utility-scale segment and in areas of high insolation.
  Systems using high-concentration photovoltaics especially have the potential to become competitive in the near future. They possess the highest efficiency of all existing PV technologies, and a smaller photovoltaic array also reduces the balance of system costs. Currently, CPV is far less common than conventional PV systems and has only recently been made available to the residential market. The first residential installation is a 1.6 kwh system in Chatsworth, California by Radical Sun Systems.
  In 2016, cumulative CPV installations reached 350 megawatts, less than 0.2% of the global installed capacity of 230,000 MW.
context_section_description: From concentrations of 100 to 300 suns, the CPV systems require two-axis solar tracking and cooling (whether passive or active), which makes them more complex.
caption: A 10×10 mm HCPV solar cell
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "567", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "444"}