Solar to be Cheaper than Coal ...

... starting next year!

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html

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.

 

I hope this will work! It would really solve alot of problems!

 

Very interesting. ​

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I really hope this works! Current solar technology just doesn't cost out for me, but I'd really love to have it.

 

I hope it works out as well. I have looked into solar power for when I build a house but it is so expensive currently. This looks promising.

 

I thought silicon was/is one of the most plentifull substances on earth.OOps--I guess it's silica to which I was referring.

 

I will believe this when I see it.News stories of cheaper solar panels, along with baldness cures and fatbuster pills have been standard news filler items for a number of years now.

 

Check out OCTILLION.I bought some stock in it --just to see.

 

I reckon you could save more energy by placing mirrors in a poistion that would reflect more light back at the panels, wander if it would work?