San Francisco, California [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Organizers of the California Clean Tech Open (CCTO) unveiled the winners of its inaugural competition. In the Renewable Energy category, GreenVolts won $100,000 worth of prizes for its High Concentration Photovoltaic (HCPV) technology that produces energy at half the cost of traditional solar panels without reliance on scarce silicon wafers.
The runner-up in the Renewable Energy category is CoolEarth Solar, of Livermore, California, which endorses the solar farming approach, based on concentrated photovoltaic collectors, to reduce the cost of solar electricity by a factor of 25. The CCTO received more than 155 submissions to its initial challenge in May. A panel of venture capitalists, researchers and faculty from the state’s leading universities and research laboratories, as well as leading industrialists narrowed the field to 43 finalists in June.
