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About 970 trillion kWh of solar energy reaches the earth every single day, which is equivalent to almost 300 times the annual electricity needs of the United States. An area of 150 kilometres x 150 kilometres covered with solar cells would supply the total current electricity needs for the entire United States of America. (J.A. Turner, Science 285, 1999, p. 687). Moreover, this assumes these solar cells are only 15% efficient. Currently, multi-junction gallium arsenide solar cells that are used in 500+ times concentrating panels have an efficiency range of 36% to 41%.
The Government of Ontario recently enacted its Green Energy Act, with the intention of producing more energy from renewable sources, as well as encouraging more small scale production that can be fed back into the power grid. Subsidies have been introduced to encourage private investment in renewable energy generation, with attractive rates being paid for generated solar power.
IBK Capital raised US $26.5 million for OPEL International Inc. in a series of private placements of units of common shares and warrants, and advised OPEL to obtain a listing on the TSX Venture Exchange through the reverse take-over mechanism.
OPEL designs, manufactures and markets high performance concentrating photovoltaic products to transform solar energy into electricity for worldwide application. OPEL’s high performance photovoltaic concentrating products generate up to 40% more kilowatt-hours than conventional fixed silicon solar panels, resulting in more cost effective electricity generated from the sun. OPEL also expects to operate on premise generating facilities that provide customers with solar generated electricity at competitive prices without the need of capital investments on the customers’ part.
Significant customer activity has been generated in the US, Canada and Europe for OPEL’s concentrating products. Several different products have been developed in order to maximize the solar power output for customers depending on their location. Some of this design activity has been done in conjunction with the Canadian Photonics facility in Ottawa which is part of and on the campus of the Canadian National Research Centre. Through the use of solar concentrating systems, the operating efficiency of the solar cell is increased while the cost per output watt of electricity is significantly reduced, particularly when compared to present fixed flat plate solar panel technology in silicon.
OPEL’s Planar Optoelectronics Technology, or POET, is a technological breakthrough because POET provides the first and only true chip-level integration of photonic (light-based) devices such as lasers and detectors with electronic (electron-based) devices such as transistors. With POET, all electrical and optical elements of an IC are built in one serial manufacturing process. OPEL’s POET monolithic ICs have the lowest cost and the smallest size, consume much less power, have higher reliability and increased functionality and are faster than the best hybrid module competition. OPEL’s POET has raised the current performance ceiling by a factor of more than 1000.
OPEL is now focused on the development and building of this new addition to the solar energy industry based on POET technology starting in Ottawa at the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre. This facility in addition to POET will produce a significant technological breakthrough for the solar energy industry.
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