Nanosolar Boosts Cells Efficiency, Starts Mass Production

[kristopher]

Nanosolar Boosts Cells Efficiency, Starts Mass Production

The CIGS thin-film solar maker has posted two white papers about its technology and products, and it has named some of its customers who have inked $4.1 billion of contracts.

After staying mum for most of the year, Nanosolar said it has made a leap into mass production and improved its cells' efficiency.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company touted these accomplishments to show that it has made a significant progress since it first announced the start of commercial production in December 2007.

That December announcement has drawn skepticism and even ridicule from competitors and analysts because the company kept refusing to divulge details of its technology, factory capacities or production rate, and it revealed little about customers or projects that would make use of its solar panels.

A Photon magazine article published in...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nanosolar-boosts-cells-efficiency-starts-mass-production

Links to the white papers are at the end of the article embedded in the text.

[ejpoeta]

1. i would love to see some of the innovations I've been watching on shows like

beyond tomorrow etc become reality and affordable.... Imagine if we could actually afford solar energy. I would definitely invest in it if it were more affordable and more efficient.

[kristopher]

2. $4 billion in contracts = affordable in one sense

I'm sure you are talking about home use without a utility financing part of the costs, right? That is one market, but for another market solar has shown that it is a good, affordable way to meet large scale needs. Solar produces its most power at the time when demand on the grid from A/C use peaks. Meeting that peak demand is expensive and in that market, solar is often a viable economic option.

This is particularly interesting to utilities; that's how they justify helping homeowners pay part for their systems. It is also important to commercial enterprises like big box stores that have to pay rates based on a constantly shifting supply/demand formula. Peak prices can easily be 20X - 40X the average off-peak price.

As companies gear up to meet this demand, the increase in manufacturing base will drive end user costs down and sooner or later it will be affordable at the level you are hoping for.

Be patient.

[ejpoeta]

3. if utilities can use solar and wind to offset use of coal or any other dirty fuel source

I am all for it. but I would also like to see the costs come down so that individuals such as myself could install them and use them as well. anything that can at the very least lessen our use of coal or carbon based fuels is great news!! Though it would be great to get some help with the costs, I feel that if the costs came down enough, then most folks wouldn't need the incentive to do something economically in their best interest.... I would love to get a windmill here, personally.... i cannot afford it, but i also know it would probably be a hassle requiring town meetings and such... i doubt if we could put solar up that wouldn't be the case. My husband loved watching on planet green channel about the guy that went off grid built a cabin and put solar and wind in and was totally off the grid.

[DCKit]

4. "...happy to disclose that its manufacturing cost is about 87 cents per watt."

If they sell at a 100% markup, it's just over 40% of current retail pricing. Not only affordable with CA's rebates, tax refunds and utility incentives, but a potential moneymaker.

And yeah, I'm tired of being told to "be patient". We've been hearing about new, less expensive technologies as well as massive roll-outs of new products almost weekly for the past thirty years, and neither has materialized. Panel prices are nearly as high today as when we bought sixteen of them ten years ago. Is there a correlation between pricing and the fact that Big Oil owns, or has interest in, many of the corporations that manufacture panels?

I will be looking at buying a new array very shortly (to compensate for lower winter output of the existing panels) but, unless these prices drop to <$4.00/watt in the retail market, I'll consider buying a good generator instead, or simply doing without.

[kristopher]

6. You're blurring two numbers

The panel manufacturing costs and the total installation costs. The panel costs have dropped significantly, as the OP shows. However that is only a fraction of total installation costs. The big advance in that area is related to both NanoSolar's flexible cells and an installation design by Solyndra that virtually eliminates the wind drag factor for rooftop installations. The numbers out there are vague, but IIRC it gets labor down to below $1/watt also.
Solyndra's is only marketing to commercial users at this point and their full capacity is sold out several years ahead.

Sorry you don't want to be patient any longer, but the screwy thing about patience is that you are often left with very little choice about whether to have it or not...

[DCKit]

8. I said "cost/watt" and I meant "cost/watt". Not "+ installation + inverter + batteries + cables".

I tend to have a pretty good memory about the $10,000+ purchases I've made in my lifetime.

[kristopher]

9. Cost per watt is used to look at

a total system or any of components of the system. Your first post wasn't clear and your second was a total success at not adding any further clarity. Thank you.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. JA Solar Developing Next Generation Solar Products using Silicon Ink Technology from Innovalight

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=209294&mesg_id=210753

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. “median efficiency rating of 11 percent and a maximum electricity conversion of 16.4 percent”

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS128428+18-Sep-2009+PRN20090918

Major Solar Breakthroughs in Germany Ahead of PVSEC

Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:45am EDT

BERLIN and HAMBURG, September 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Germany's photovoltaic industry is marked by yet another milestone ahead of this year's European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference & Exhibition (EU PVSEC), taking place from September 21 - 25 in Hamburg. Last week California-based Nanosolar opened its fully-automated thin film panel factory in Luckenwalde near Berlin. This new factory sets several new benchmarks for the industry. Germany is the longstanding global leader in photovoltaics. There are more than 500,000 solar electricity systems in Germany that have an output of 5.3 GWp of cumulated power, of which 1.5 GWp comes from systems installed in 2008. Germany's market accounts for 37 percent of the entire global industry. The PV industry in Germany posted over EUR 7 billion in revenues in 2008 and expects 15-20 percent market growth until 2013.

The opening of the Nanosolar plant has the potential to shift the industry in a number of ways. First, the fully-automated plant is an affirmation of German efficiency in production. When operating on a 24/7 basis, it will have an annual module producing capacity of 640 MW. This is equivalent to one panel every 10 seconds.

The thin film cells also set a new efficiency record for this type of cell, reaching a median efficiency rating of 11 percent and a maximum electricity conversion of 16.4 percent.

On the technical side, Nanosolar uses aluminum rather than a glass substrate, which lowers costs and increases application possibilities due to the lighter weight of the cells. This change combined with the nanoparticle ink printing technique used to produce the cells mark a leap forward for Germany and the entire photovoltaic industry.

…