Telecommunications: Paving the way for PV and ORC wide spread use of electricity production

Two power technologies, Photovoltaic (PV) and Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), are presently used in utility scale renewable energy systems and were initially developed to power telecommunication applications in space and remote terrestrial sites. Today, the total installed capacity worldwide is 90 GW for PV and 2 GW for ORC (mainly through geothermal applications). This paper describes the particular characteristics of these technologies and how they overcame established power systems: batteries for satellites and diesel generators in remote sites. While the upgraded power technologies lower efficiency (main criteria for power conversion systems choice) and higher cost per kW, neither of these characteristics were the priority when first introduced. Rather, PV was crucial for satellites due to its light weight (reducing the cost of the launch) and the ORC eliminated maintenance and overhauls, and, in many cases, storage batteries, at remote locations in harsh environments. This paper further describes various original applications and how ever-changing market conditions enabled the now proven new technologies to be expanded from watt to MW plants for PV and from 1 kW to 25 MW ORC units The increased use of PV and ORC technologies are examples depicting how disruptive technologies, as described by Clayton Christensen (“The Innovator´s Dilemma” and “The Innovator´s Solution”), evolve from niche markets in the fast changing electronic industry to wider use in slower changing industries such as large scale energy production. In both cases it took more than a century to reach parity with established power solutions. By planning the phases ahead of time in may be possible to accelerate the introduction of new technologies into large established markets. A bibliography is presented at the end of the paper.