Black Sun Planetary Solutions, Inc., a solar energy startup company based in Poway, CA, is entering the concentrating solar power (CSP) industry with an extremely low cost and novel design for solar thermal collectors, the main component of utility-scale solar power plants. BSPS’s patent-pending designs employ innovative geometry to drastically reduce precision requirements. This allows the BSPS collectors to utilize inexpensive components and low tolerance manufacturing techniques to cut costs.

After three years of internally funded R&D, the company is currently expanding its capabilities to allow construction of its first commercial solar collector products. The company’s future plans include a small-scale demonstration plant in Ramona, CA, as well as large-scale CSP plants in the U.S. and other countries. BSPS is currently completing testing on its fourth generation of prototypes and invites interested local parties to witness it in the beginning of December at its Poway, CA engineering offices.

“Our research has reached a tipping point where we are demonstrating solid performance that should cut the cost of construction of new plants by nearly half,” explains Terrance Yee, President and CEO of Black Sun Planetary Solutions. “At today’s costs, photovoltaics (PV) are 20% cheaper than CSP and as a result, 10 times as much PV was constructed in the US last year. If we can cut the costs of CSP by nearly half this would change the entire landscape of the industry,” adds Yee.