Nanosolar: Printing Solar Film Like Paper
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 08.23.06
Nanosolar is a company based in Palo Alto, California, which uses an innovative technique to produce a kind of "solar film". To make the film, Nanosolar prints CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenium) onto a thin polymer using machines that look like printing presses. There is no costly silicon involved in the process, and, ultimately, a solar cell from Nanosolar will cost about one-fifth to one-tenth the cost of a standard silicon solar panel. Nanosolar is only a few years old, but it has laid plans to take on multinational corporations, such as BP and Sharp, in the solar industry.
The company recently announced that it now has the funding to get started on volume production of its photovoltaic technology. It plans to build a manufacturing facility in California that will eventually produce 430 megawatts of solar cells per year, making the company one of the largest solar producers in the world in the span of a few years. Nanosolar will also build a plant in Germany for taking the solar cells and fitting them into solar panels. Later, Nanosolar will produce plastic sheets coated with the particles to generate electricity on the rooftops of big box retailers.
We first mentioned Nanosolar when we heard that the founders of Google would be investing in the company.
:: Nanosolar
Great news. I hope they get these things out to market soon. The sooner, the better. I hope to see them also come out with small PV panels for individuals as quickly as possible.
A word on risk management Those metals are not without drawbacks from a sustainability standpoint: life cycle toxicity questions need to be tackled before exposures scale up. Secondly, design life likely hinges on the polymer. Whereas the typical design life is 25 - 30 years+ for todays' rigid solar panels, these new thin films might be an order of magnitude lower unless the base film is a flouropolymer, from which another layer of issues is introduced.
I wish them all the success in the world, but I remain skeptical for the moment. Their history of incredible claims combined with nothing but hype to back them up has me thinking Segway.
I've been watching Nanosolar for a while, and I still havn't been able to find information on solar cell efficiency or cell lifetimes. I've gotten a bit jaded about companies pitching the "next big thing" that don't put up hard numbers.
Regarding the polymer lifetime issue: Maybe I just didn't find it, but I do not see where Nanosolar has said they're printing onto a polymer. As far as I can tell, they are not revealing the substrate material. Flexible substrates do not have to be plastics, so maybe they have something more durable.
Mike, I remember reading somewhere that Nanosolar is about 10-12% efficient (compared with 14-15% for regular Silicon cell and around 30-35% for triple junction cells manufactured by SpectroLabs).
According to Wikipedia Nanosolar cells will cost between 1/10th and 1/5th the industry standard per kilowatt. Though you would need larger square footage to generate the same amount of electricity.
Another fact that Justin failed to point out was the 430 MW is a HUGE capacity, unprecedented in the industry.
Also, this "news" is well over two months old.
this is great news.in india we are suffering from loadsheding.when would it will be available in domestic market?will it's price affordable for common middle class people?
were do iget the solar sheets at and how much