Home
Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. (Thornton, Colorado), a developer of flexible thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules, on September 3rd, 2009 announced that SkySentry LLC, a high altitude vehicle developer headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, received its first flexible copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide (CIGS) PV array for an upcoming aerostat test in Sandusky, Ohio, scheduled for mid-September, 2009. The aerostat is part of an Army Space and Missile Defense Command's High Altitude, Long-Endurance Testbed, Ascent Solar reports. Charles Lambert, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SkySentry, stated: "Power production and storage are the most difficult challenge of operating stationary vehicles for lengthy periods in the stratosphere. This test will use an aerostat, a tethered blimp, to characterize performance of a solar array on a dynamic platform, understand the performance of thin film arrays on a buoyant vehicle in terms of temperature and impact on an inflated substrate, determine the consistency of solar output for high altitude applications and quantify the effect of clouds and variable weather on performance of an aerostat-mounted array."
According to the press release, corollary benefits include comparing
high efficiency solar array deployments on aerostats as primary or
supplementary power generation with other technologies such as
off-shore power generation with wind turbines. "This shipment
represents our first delivery of flexible monolithically integrated
CIGS PV specifically for airship experimentation", Ascent Solar's
President and CEO Farhad Moghadam commented. "SkySentry's testing of
our photovoltaics on the aerostat, along with advanced power
management, will demonstrate their approach towards an important
application for national security and surveillance applications."
