It took a while to find their webpage. I also found a paper on the subject. Australia is tailor-made for massive solar power production, and if someone came up with superconducting power lines, they'd have it made.
Concentrator tech is efficient, but still pretty expensive. The best systems require mechanical tracking (like sunflowers) and active cooling, which is lost in the noise of the extra power gained, but adds to cost.
I have seen designs for little plastic concentrators built into arrays of panels. The mirror in the back is designed to focus light on the cell in the middle, but it doesn't track the sun. It relies on a specially-shaped mirror. It loses efficiency as the sun moves away from the ideal focus, but still exceeds the efficiency that the little cell in the middle would have all by itself. And since the concentrator material is cheap, and the cells are not, costs are improved.
There are many other designers working this same basic "concentrator" concept in both complex and simple designs.
Another piece on this here.
I am very optimistic about decentralized solar power technology, and am betting that a major economic and marketing breakthrough is coming soon.
Space/Science » in reply to Northern Australia sets record for solar power efficiency
re: Solar Systems
