Nanosolar 'prints' first flexible solar cells

CNET News ^ | December 18, 2007 | Martin LaMonica

[antiRepublicrat]

Well-financed solar start-up Nanosolar on Tuesday said it has started shipping its flexible thin-film solar cells, meeting its own deadline and marking a milestone for alternative solar-cell materials.

On the company's blog, CEO Martin Roscheisen announced that the first megawatt of its solar panels will be used as part of a power plant in eastern Germany.

The release of Nanosolar's first products is significant because the company develops a process to print solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide, a combination of elements that many companies are pursuing as an alternative to silicon.

The 5-year-old company, based in San Jose, Calif., has raised more than $100 million in financing and has drawn in Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page as investors.

[PapaBear3625]

It's actually on the edge of being cost effective (which is better than it's ever been before).

Here in the Northeast we get the equivalent of 4 hours of peak sunlight, averaged throughout the year. This means a 1Kw panel, costing $2K installed, would produce about 1500 KwH per year, for a cost savings of $150/year. This makes payoff about 7 years, assuming no maintenance costs during those 7 years (a big assumption)

As I said before, I see these panels being most cost effective in the southwest, where there's more sunlight and higher electric prices. And we can expect that the price of panels will come down over time, increasing the areas over which they would be cost effective (without subsidy).

[aquila48]

Thanks for the links...

[rb22982]

What I've seen on FR is that most of us are really environmentalists. We're just not anti-corporate like those who have hijacked the environmental movement.

Yup, and economical. If I can get a payback time of less than 5 years, and then have 10-15 years (or more) of payback, it would absolutely be worth it. Very interesting to see this technology progress.

[Sir Gawain]

Imagine the Middle East with no US oil market. A comedy waiting to be written.

[Balding_Eagle]

Move em under the street lighting?