FYI,

"Start-Up Sells Solar Panels at Lower-Than-Usual Cost"
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/technology/18solar.html?
ex=1355634000&en=091b06819623f9d0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

: Nanosolar, a heavily financed Silicon Valley start-up whose backers
: include Google's co-founders, plans to announce Tuesday that it has
: begun selling its innovative solar panels, which are made using a
: technique that is being held out as the future of solar power
: manufacturing.

: The company, which has raised $150 million and built a
: 200,000-square-foot factory here, is developing a new manufacturing
: process that "prints" photovoltaic material on aluminum backing, a
: process the company says will reduce the manufacturing cost of the
: basic photovoltaic module by more than 80 percent.

: Nanosolar, which recently hired a top manufacturing executive from
: I.B.M., said that it had orders for its first 18 months of
: manufacturing capacity. The photovoltaic panels will be made in
: Silicon Valley and in a second plant in Germany.

: While many photovoltaic start-up companies are concentrating on
: increasing the efficiency with which their systems convert
: sunlight, Nanosolar has focused on lowering the manufacturing cost.
: Its process is akin to a large printing press, rather than the
: usual semiconductor manufacturing techniques that deposit thin
: films on silicon wafers.

: Nanosolar's founder and chief executive, Martin Roscheisen, claims
: to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to profitably
: sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. That is the price at
: which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal.

: "With a $1-per-watt panel," he said, "it is possible to build
: $2-per-watt systems."

: According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs
: about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said.

: The first Nanosolar panels are destined for a one-megawatt solar
: plant to be installed in Germany on a former landfill owned by a
: waste management company. The plant, being developed by Beck
: Energy, is expected to initially supply electrical power for about
: 400 homes.

: The company chose to build its plant in southern San Jose, news
: that was cheered by local development officials. Much of the
: microelectronics industry created here has moved to Asia and new
: factories are a rare commodity in Silicon Valley.

------------

"The New Dawn of Solar"
Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html

: Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a
: layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity.
: From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built
: inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air.
: Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny
: Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well,
: because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than
: burning coal. That's the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar
: power that's ubiquitous because it's cheap. The basic technology
: has been around for decades, but this year, Silicon Valley–based
: Nanosolar created the manufacturing technology that could make that
: promise a reality.

: The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with
: printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of
: solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum
: foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current
: panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. With
: backing from Google's founders and $20 million from the U.S.
: Department of Energy, Nanosolar's first commercial cells rolled off
: the presses this year.

: Cost has always been one of solar's biggest problems. Traditional
: solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity
: (exacerbated currently by a global silicon shortage). What's more,
: says Peter Harrop, chairman of electronics consulting firm
: IDTechEx, "it has to be put on glass, so it's heavy, dangerous,
: expensive to ship and expensive to install because it has to be
: mounted." And up to 70 percent of the silicon gets wasted in the
: manufacturing process. That means even the cheapest solar panels
: cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete
: with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt.

: Nanosolar's cells use no silicon, and the company's manufacturing
: process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most
: commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. "You're talking
: about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of
: 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever
: you want it," says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable
: and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California
: at Berkeley. "It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering
: the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the
: economics of solar."

: In San Jose, Nanosolar has built what will soon be the world's
: largest solar-panel manufacturing facility. CEO Martin Roscheisen
: claims that once full production starts early next year, it will
: create 430 megawatts' worth of solar cells a year—more than the
: combined total of every other solar plant in the U.S. The first
: 100,000 cells will be shipped to Europe, where a consortium will be
: building a 1.4-megawatt power plant next year.

: Right now, the biggest question for Nanosolar is not if its
: products can work, but rather if it can make enough of them.
: California, for instance, recently launched the Million Solar Roofs
: initiative, which will provide tax breaks and rebates to encourage
: the installation of 100,000 solar roofs per year, every year, for
: 10 consecutive years (the state currently has 30,000 solar roofs).
: The company is ready for the solar boom. "Most important," Harrop
: says, "Nanosolar is putting down factories instead of blathering to
: the press and doing endless experiments. These guys are getting on
: with it, and that is impressive."

http://www.nanosolar.com

Mark Reiff