Solar energy 'revolution' brings green power closer
- From: xnichols@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:36:33 -0800 (PST)
Panels start solar power 'revolution'
John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian, (extract)
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. "
Full Article:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/29/solarpower.renewableenergy
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