Cheaper (and better) solar!

[FreepZ]

Startup Aims to Cut the Cost of Solar Cells in Half


Rather than cutting a block of silicon to make 200-micrometer-thick wafers (which is about as thin as you can make a wafer without it being too brittle), Twin Creeks make 20-micrometer-thick wafers and coat them with metal to make them strong and flexible. The new method is less wasteful and cheaper "40 cents per watt compared to the 80 cents it costs now".

They don't plan to make cells, but instead sell machines to other companies that want to do that. By next year they expect their machine to be available. Hopefully I'll be able to buy some panels made from that stuff soon after.

Read all about it here.
Or hit the Twin Creeks website here.

Flexible and cheap panels are just the thing I need to power my EV. Also, 40c per Watt is great! I read a study a while back that said that $1 per Watt was the tipping point when solar should take off (although I cannot recall if that included installation and all the other equipment required).

[protomech]

The solarpackages at wholesalesolar.com are usually $2-3/watt at best .. including microinverters, mounting hardware, etc. Some of their prices don't count racks, which add about $0.30/watt to the cost.. and they're using PTC as the wattage rating.

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/gridtie.html

If this technology can shave $0.40/watt from that cost, solar will probably pick up some serious momentum.

[Richard230]

An article in my newspaper today says that 2011 was the best year yet for new solar power panel installations. The installation of solar power panels more than doubled between 2010 and 2011.  A report jointly released on Wednesday by the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research found that 1,855 MW were installed nationwide in 2011, an increase of 109% over the previous year. More than 61,000 individual solar projects were completed in 2011, including many large installations serving commercial or utility scale clients. There were 28 projects larger than 10 MW each. The record number of panel installations was fueled, in part, by a free-fall in solar panel prices, which dropped more than 50% in 2011.

Here are the top 10 states for photovoltaic solar installations during 2011:

California:  542 MW
New Jersey:  313 MW
Arizona:  273 MW
New Mexico:  115 MW
Colorado:  91 MW
Pennsylvania:   88 MW
New York:  60 MW
North Carolina:  55 MW
Texas: 47 MW
Nevada:  44 MW

[Xaero]

I still think printing Solar panels is better!

http://www.nanosolar.com/