$1/watt solar??

Discussion in 'Economics' started by scriabinop23, Dec 18, 2007.

  1. One word for this....

    AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ..........................................................

    Good Post !

    Hope this is for real......

    The tough thing would be to actually sell
    it at these levels.....

    High margins....for a while...

    http://www.nanosolar.com/index.html
     
  2. I have followed this company for the last 2 years, this is the real deal. I called them up begging to let me invest, the answer was "we are fully funded at this point, try back later". Look at the list of investors, that looks like the guest list to the Oscars equivalent.
     
  3. maybe this can further clarify what they are doing , from an email to me:

    December 18, 2007
    After five years of product development – including aggressively pipelined science, research and development, manufacturing process development, product testing, manufacturing engineering and tool development, and factory construction – we now have shipped first product and received our first check of product revenue.
    We are grateful to everyone who supported us through all these years and the many occasions where there appeared to be mile-high concrete walls in our path; the unusual intensity and creativity of our team deserves all the credit for achieving this major milestone today.
    Our product is defining in more ways I can enumerate here but includes:

    - the world’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product;
    - the world’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability;
    - 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/Watt;
    - the world’s highest-current thin-film solar panel – delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment;
    - an intensely systems-optimized product with the lowest balance-of-system cost of any thin-film panel – due to innovations in design we have included.
    Today we are announcing that we have begun shipping panels for freefield deployment in Eastern Germany and that the first Megawatt of our panels will go into a power plant installation there.
    As far as the first three of our commercial panels are concerned:
    Panel #1 will remain at Nanosolar for exhibit.
    Panel #2 can be purchased by you in an auction on eBay starting today.
    Panel #3 has been donated to the Tech Museum in San Jose.
    [These are obviously not the first three we ever produced – we have produced loads for testing – but these are the first three of what we consider our commercial panels.]
     
  4. maxpi

    maxpi

    The state of California is building a steam engine based 550 megawatt solar power station on 7 acres. That is 1800 watts per square foot. The solar panel company is keeping actual technical details to themselves but I doubt they can come anywhere near that much power per square foot. they might be as high as 50 since they claim 5 to 10 times the previous generation's capability. They should have a huge market for new construction and retrofitting even single family homes. At 50 watts a square foot the average house in the Mojave Desert could sell lots of energy to the grid most days.

    Coal has to go. It is the cause of the pollution of the oceans with mercury and it spews all sorts of garbage into the air including a lot of radioactive stuff that is dredged up with the coal. If these solar panel manufacturers can keep lowering the initial cost and raising the energy density there has to be a massive wave of conversion of generation to the ubiquitous model.
     
  5. chisel

    chisel

  6. Because they have no product for over a year.

    Many companies over the last 5 years making claims of this and that but no significant amount of product ever gets delivered. Like Daystar Technologies.
     
  7. The panels can produce .99c per watt solor under ideal conditions, which would be 3 to 4 hours per day in the right (desert) environment.

    You still have your infastructure costs in building a solar farm, such as land and connecting to the grid. Plus systems for controlling output as well as administation and business operation costs.

    If the panels are to be used for domestic purposes you have installation costs, back up batteries or expensive electrical systems to integrate into the home power supply andsend electricity back to the grid.

    The real cost is probably closer to 6c -7c per kwh.

    We're getting there though. i read a report that said solar efficiency is improving at such a rate that it will make coal look expensive within ten years. We're talking 3c - 4c wholesale.

    Runningbear
     
  8. We could end up using this stuff as roofing material or something :) Imagine a home's roof covering topped entirely with this economical "printed" solar film technology. That would give enough power to reduce electric costs sizeably.
     
  9. I suspect manufacturing solar panels is cheaper in China than USA, Canada or Europe so it is the Chinese solar companies that are likely to grow the solar business.
     
    #10     Dec 19, 2007