Thin film solar technology has attracted interest from venture capitalists because of its higher efficiency, lower use of limited silicon, and more easily automated production processes. Now, established Japanese players in the solar arena are getting in the thin film game, followed by companies in China and India, as reported in Renewable Energy World.

• Mitsubishi Chemical already produces materials for the solar industry but sees opportunity to produce the cells themselves
• Sanyo is an established producer of crystalline solar cells, but has opened an Advanced PV Development Center in Gifu, Japan to concentrate on developing thin film technology.

This is good news for solar energy advocates, as these companies have the capital and the knowledge base to ramp up production more rapidly than startups, while increasing efficiency and cost savings. According to Sanyo’s Makoto Tanaka:

“‘Our target date for volume production was 2012, but in order to move that up, we’ve decided to invest an additional US $14 million,’ said Tanaka, bringing total investment … to some US $70M through 2010. He noted that the production ramp should be eased because part of the new process is very similar to that already used in Sanyo’s mainstay heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer (HIT) cells, which sandwich a single-crystal silicon substrate between layers of amorphous silicon thin films.”

Sadly, the United States is not one of the countries competing on this scale with Sanyo and Mitsubishi, who see their main competition coming from China and India. Though the U.S. company Nanosolar has been a leading innovator in thin film, and Open Energy is making big inroads in the production of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) modules using thin film tech, they are still comparatively small players in the space, along with FirstSolar. Let’s hope that the U.S. steps up to provide the kind of legislative support that U.S. companies need to move forward at a faster pace in developing new solar technologies.

Image Credit: Ovonic.com

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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the United States has announced that a new device developed by its scientists can convert 40.8 percent of light that hits it into electricity. This bests the previous record of 40.7 percent set by a different organization.

According to NREL spokesman George Douglas, the new device is both thinner and lighter than the previous model, which used a germanium wafer.

This solar cell, however, uses gallium indium phosphide and gallium indium arsenide to split light into 3 parts, each of which are then absorbed by the cell’s 3 layers.
(more…)

As tech giants rush into the solar cell business, their competition promises to bring down the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels used to generate electricity. PV modules use silicon cells, which are also used in computer chips. But with the traditional chip business growing at only 5% annually, tech companies are looking for a new market niche to grow.

This is good news for the solar industry, where cost has been a barrier to wider acceptance. Thus far, technology improvements have lowered solar PV costs only marginally, with each improvement coming at a large research cost. Fierce competition on the part of the largest tech companies could change that. According to Paul Davidson in USA TODAY:

“Since May, computer powerhouses Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM) and National Semiconductor (NSM) have barreled into solar energy, joining hundreds of fellow technology mainstays. Virtually every chipmaker is weighing a solar play, says Rhone Resch, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association. ‘We have a classic Silicon Valley land rush,’ says T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor (CY), which owns 56% of SunPower. Drawing the stalwarts is solar’s 40% annual growth, says Gartner analyst Jim Hines.”

The savings will come largely in the area of automating manufacturing. How then, will the solar industry deal with the shortage of silicon? Semiconductor International rather mysteriously predicts that supplies of silicon will increase next year. Along with the shift to solar thin film technology, which uses little or no silicon, this may mean that mass-market adaptation is within reach.

Image Credit: Trend Labs Malware Blog

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R&D magazine covers the newest, nerdiest gear from inventors and scientists. The R&D 100 awards are hailed as the “Oscars of Invention” by the Chicago Tribune. The prestigious award helps push the most promising inventions into the market. Other winners include specialized microscopes and super-hydrophobic coatings.

EMCORE is the proud producer of inverted metamorphic (IMM) solar cells, which are already used on land and in space. The IMM technology recently made an in-orbit efficiency record of 33%. EMCORE is a reputable and successful semiconductor company. Their solar technology has been on my radar for a while now.

Developed in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Vehicle Systems Directorate of the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the IMM design is comprised of a novel combination of compound semiconductors that enables a superior response to the solar spectrum as compared to conventional multi-junction architecture. Due to its unique design, the IMM cell is approximately one fifteenth the thickness of the conventional multi-junction solar cell and will enable a new class of extremely lightweight, high-efficiency, and flexible solar arrays for space applications. (via news release) (more…)

MIT has perfected a dye technology that could change the solar world as we know it.

The most efficient form of solar technology today is (arguably) extreme concentrated photovoltaics, essentially solar panels placed under a magnifying glass. But the problem with these systems is heat.

Concentrated sunlight can melt silicon solar panels unless you include specialized cooling systems. Cooling technology costs money, and the panels require expensive tracking mechanisms to follow the sun through the day. MIT’s new solar system bypasses the heat and tracking problems all together.

Thin coatings of organic dyes absorb sunlight and redirect favored wavelengths into a pane of glass. The light is aimed and concentrated towards the edge of the pane where small solar panels are located. The concentrated light allows the panels to produce the maximum possible amount of energy all day, every day without cooling systems or complex tracking mechanisms. (more…)

John Sedgwick is the Co-founder and Vice President of Solaicx, a company that manufactures silicon ingots and wafers for solar electric (PV) panels. They are then supplied to solar panel manufacturers across the globe.

Solaicx began production at their new manufacturing plant in Portland, Oregon at the end of 2007. While current capacity of the plant is 40 MW, production will increase to 180 MW in the future.

CleanTechnica: What kinds of general trends have you seen in the solar industry as a whole?

John Sedgwick: The general objective of the entire industry is to reduce costs. What we see in markets across the world is, as you lower the levelized costs of solar electricity down to the levelized cost of traditional electricity, the markets just go vertical. When you look over time, the industry is doing dramatically well at reducing costs.That’s even when you take into account some significant challenges, things like polysilicon shortages and other shortages that have popped up as a direct result of a market that has been growing at 35%, 40%, and 50% a year have caused shortages that have increased some costs in the chain. Yet, because of manufacturing efficiencies, conversion efficiencies, and economies of scale, the industry has been able to hold the line on any cost increases and has done pretty well at reducing costs. (more…)

Many people envision solar power as rigid silicon panels mounted on a roof. With thin film solar cells, you’re more likely to not see them, or even know they’re there. This article is about a real-life thin film solar project.

Not many bloggers are able to witness the technologies we research and write about. It’s one thing to be able to buy afford a cool “green” gadget (usually not very green), but another to see the many forms of solar, wind, geothermal, etc., which are always changing and developing around the world. So when my employer decided to go solar, you might imagine my excitement.

At the moment I work for Magco Inc., a Tecta America company. Tecta is a national commercial roofing corporation that can install green roofs, solar lighting, and solar panels alongside a variety of traditional roofing systems. This solar project is pretty straight forward: our building has a big, flat roof on top of a hill without any shade. You’d have trouble finding a sunnier spot for solar panels.

I was double delighted when I heard that they ordered thin-film solar! Naturally inquiring minds wanted to know: why and what kind? (more…)

New trends spotted at the American Solar Energy Society conference last week in San Diego (courtesy of Illinois Solar Energy Association President Mark Burger, who attended):

• From Bosch, a new generation of solar flat plate collectors (used in solar thermal water heating applications) that can be mounted on the roof at a lower angle, addressing some peoples’ aesthetic concerns. The panels are also lighter-weight and easier to mount even on high roofs. Low-profile collectors were also unveiled by Schuco, Viessman, and Velux. Perhaps next year, one of the innovative solar companies will be from the U.S.?
• Solar thin film technology is exceeding expectations, with market share estimated at 3%, vs. 1-2%. Thin film is the new solar kid on the block, celebrated because of its lower cost, higher efficiency and more flexible applications.
• SolarBuzz reported a 62% increase in world PV production. “Germany’s PV market reached 1,328 MW in 2007 and now accounts for 47% of the world market. Spain soared by over 480% to 640 MW, while the U.S. increased by 57% to 220 MW, [making it] the world’s largest market behind Japan, once the world leader.”
• ASES (American Solar Energy Society), the conference’s sponsor, announced a push to establish more student chapters, in order to enlist solar energy’s future leaders. (Photo from VELUX image gallery.)

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Interview: Dr. W.S. Sampath at CSU has developed new “thin film” solar technology

Thin film has been the holy grail of solar technology: everyone is seeking it, but so far its market penetration is well under 5%, and its use in large-area applications, such as for solar photovoltaic (PV) modules large enough to power buildings, has barely developed. (Thin film light absorbers are about 1 micron thick and are less costly to produce, as compared to the silicon found in traditional solar PV modules, which at around 200 microns thick is still thinner than a human hair.)

So I was very interested to hear that Dr. W. S. Sampath, professor of mechanical engineering at Colorado State University (CSU), has developed a new, more streamlined production process that promises to reduce the cost of thin film even more. The company bringing his product to market is AVA Solar, who received a $3 million solar incubator grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar America Initiative. I spoke to Dr. Sampath by telephone on Friday, and asked him how his technology is different from that of First Solar, currently the market leader.

“The difference is in the manufacturing process. It is much more streamlined and integrated, with fewer production steps, which brings down the manufacturing cost.” Dr. Sampath was careful to note that AVA Solar worked in collaboration with First Solar in developing the production process. “There is a huge demand, so it makes sense to work together.” In other words, when the world is beating a path to your door for a better solar mousetrap, it pays to be open and collaborate to achieve faster, better and cheaper solutions, so as to grow the market much faster. (more…)

If solar panels cost $1/watt, you can sell them (installation included) for $2/watt. Coal (installation included) costs $2.10/watt. To date, solar is still reaching to compete with coal, but the margins are closing. To (over)simplify how this works, you need to ignore issues like subsidies, qualitative costs, or kinks in the supply chain, and boil it down to money. Two hurtles that must be jumped before photo voltaic solar cells become cheaper than coal: efficiency and production cost. Fortunately the solar industry has already made important gains in both. Today, we’re going to talk about two types of solar panels: silicon and thin-film, and solar’s quest for $1/watt. (more…)