New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production -
Colorado's State Univ.'s panels will cost less than $1 per watt

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?
ArticleID=14932&SectionID=4

Sept. 10, 2007 -- Colorado State University's method for
manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass
production. AVA Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next
year on the technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor
W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is
expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household
usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.

Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically
reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes
and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the
same cost as traditionally generated electricity.

Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process
for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin
film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because
the process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to
13%) at a very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply
than with existing technologies. The cost to the consumer could be as
low as $2 per watt, about half the current cost of solar panels. In
addition, this solar technology need not be tied to a grid, so it can
be affordably installed and operated in nearly any location.

The process is a low waste process with less than 2% of the materials
used in production needing to be recycled. It also makes better use
of raw materials since the process converts solar energy into
electricity more efficiently. Cadmium telluride solar panels require
100 times less semiconductor material than high-cost crystalline
silicon panels.

"This technology offers a significant improvement in capital and
labor productivity and overall manufacturing efficiency," said
Sampath, director of Colorado State's Materials Engineering
Laboratory.

Sampath has spent the past 16 years perfecting the technology. In
that time, annual global sales of photovoltaic technology have grown
to approximately 2 gigawatts or two billion watts -- roughly a $6
billion industry. Demand has increased nearly 40% a year for each of
the past five years -- a trend that analysts and industry experts
expect to continue.

By 2010, solar cell manufacturing is expected to be a $25 billion-
plus industry.














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