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Nanosolar hits the Streets

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 3 months ago

Some good news. Looks like solar energy cheaper than coal is REALLY

close now.....

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/29/solarpower.renewableenergy

 

Solar energy 'revolution' brings green power closer

 

Panels start solar power 'revolution'

 

John Vidal

o John Vidal, environment editor

o The Guardian,

o Saturday December 29 2007

 

The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer yesterday as

thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium

film rolled off a production line in California, heralding what

British scientists called "a revolution" in generating electricity.

 

The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company,

Nanosolar, are radically different from the kind that European

consumers are increasingly buying to generate power from their own

roofs. Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, they

are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected to make

it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal.

 

Yesterday Nanosolar said its order books were full until mid-2009 and

that a second factory would soon open in Germany where demand for

solar power has rocketed. Britain was unlikely to benefit from the

technology for some years because other countries paid better money

for renewable electricity, it added.

 

"Our first solar panels will be used in a solar power station in

Germany," said Erik Oldekop, Nanosolar's manager in Switzerland. "We

aim to produce the panels for 99 cents 50p a watt, which is

comparable to the price of electricity generated from coal. We cannot

disclose our exact figures yet as we are a private company but we can

bring it down to that level. That is the vision we are aiming at."

 

He added that the first panels the company was producing were aimed

for large- scale power plants rather than for homeowners, and that the

cost benefits would be in the speed that the technology could be

deployed. "We are aiming to make solar power stations up to 10MW in

size. They can be up and running in six to nine months compared to 10

years or more for coal-powered stations and 15 years for nuclear

plants. Solar can be deployed very quickly," said Oldekop.

 

Nanosolar is one of several companies in Japan, Europe, China and the

US racing to develop different versions of "thin film" solar

technology. It is owned by internet entrepreneur Martin Roscheisen who

sold his company to Yahoo for $450m and, with the help of the founders

of Google, the US government and other entrepreneurs in Silicon

Valley, has invested nearly $300m in commercialising the technology.

 

At the moment solar electricity costs nearly three times as much as

conventional electricity to generate, but Nanosolar's developments are

thought to have halved the price of producing conventional solar cells

at a stroke.

 

"This is the world's lowest-cost solar panel, which we believe will

make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling

solar panels at as little as 99 cents a watt," said Roscheisen yesterday.

 

However, the company, which claims to lead the "third wave" of solar

electricity, is notoriously secretive and has not answered questions

about its panels' efficiency or their durability. It is quite open

about wanting to restrict access to the technology to give it a market

advantage.

 

Jeremy Leggett, chief executive of Britain's leading solar energy

company, Solar Century, said that it would be "breathtaking" if the

technology proved as efficient as projected by the company. "This is a

revolution. But people are going to be amazed at other developments

taking place in solar technologies. We will be thrilled if this

technology is as efficient as the company says. It will not change the

direction of solar power in itself. Spectacular improvements are also

being made in other parts of the industry," he said.

 

Figures released yesterday by the Earth Policy Institute in Washington

showed that solar electricity generation was now the fastest-growing

electricity source, doubling its output every two years. It is now

attracting government and venture capital money on an unprecedented scale.

 

The technology is particularly exciting because it can be used nearly

everywhere. "You are talking about printing rolls of the stuff,

printing it on garages, anywhere you want it. It really is a big deal

in terms of altering the way we think about solar," said Dan Kamman,

director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the

University of California at Berkeley.

 

"The next industrial revolution will be based on these clean green

technologies," said Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth.

"If the UK wants to be part of it, as Gordon Brown says it does, then

it needs to rethink its strategies. Ministers have so far shown a

distinct lack of vision."

 

Power from light

 

Photovoltaic (PV) devices convert light into electrical energy. PV

cells are made of semiconductor materials such as silicon. When light

shines on a PV cell, the energy is transferred to electrons in the

atoms of the PV cell. These electrons become part of the electrical

flow, or current, in an electrical circuit. First wave photovoltaic

cell used thick silicon-wafer cells but were cumbersome and costly.

The second generation of photovoltaic materials were developed about

10 years ago and use very thin silicon layers. These brought the price

down dramatically but still need expensive vacuum processes in their

construction. The third wave of PV, now being developed by firms such

as Nanosolar, can print directly on to other materials and does not

use silicon.

 

From a surprisingly cold December in New Scotland,

ross mayhew.

 

posted in ClimateConcern

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