Nanosolar has industry's first 1GW through put tool

For me, the interesting part of the press release is that they said they were going to start selling the panels retail next year. Maybe we'll finally see a dip in PV prices.

 

That's $1 billion dollars worth of solar cells per year from a machine costing $1.65 million dollars to make.

I'm off to buy some shares in indium and gallium mines....

 

Beware of the hype. I don't have an opinion as to whether this will be completely viable. (Price, production, longevity etc.) If we had bought into every emerging breakthrough in PV we would all have $.20 watt panels on our houses, producing efficiencies of 90%, installed by CitizenRe!

I am in no way trying to talk down Nano-solar, quite the contrary, I hope they can do what they say. Even if it nets out twice the price, and they have the capacity it would bring down the net price, which we all would applaud.

The big thing to me, is the longevity of the product. Conventional PV cells have a long track record of long life in hostile environments. If Nano-solar cells have only 1/2 the true life span of a conventional cell, but cost 1/2 as much which is the bargain for example?

All I'm saying is, good luck, but beware! My hope is that they are right on their published expectations. My guess is that the outcome will fall somewhat short,, better price net/net than current technology, pushing the envelope some, moving the technology forward.

Icarus

 

Yeah, that's my current view surrounding most of these technologies. Sooner rather than later, I think the viable techs will pull away from the pack.

 

Nanosolar's response to that is that the CIGS cells display sufficient hardiness / longevity "in accordance with their 25 year warranty".

I think the inference is that they should last just as long as silicon PV.

 

I have no idea about whether it "should" last as long. All I am suggesting is that conventional PV has proved it's ruggedness and aplicabilitiy. The jury is still out as to whether or not Nano will make the break through. I hope they do, but I won't bet money on it yet.

Icarus

 

If they have a 25 year warranty on it (of course, it depend on how that warranty reads, the typical SI panel warranty states 80% of original output after 20-25 years) then they seem to have a bit of confidence in the durability. Of course, there's nothing like real world experience like the traditional panels have.

 

The key thing is if it generates power for a low price, even with a short life span of let's say 5 years. The resulting change in lifestyle would more than make up for a short life span of the first generation product.

Think cell phones, computers, or even autos. It's the life style change that made these indespensible (not always for the better). The cost effectiveness of the next generation product took care of itself once the initial market became mainstream.

 

That depends on the total lifecycle cost. Cheapest first vs cheapest last cost. Just because something is cheap up front doesn't mean it makes sense, or will change the world. As I suggest, I hope they can do a do a portion of what they hope to do. Progress is what we all are looking for.

The fact is, Pv solar can be competitive now with current technology give the right set of circumstances. When grid power costs rise in the same way as other energy have, it will only become more competitive. The worry right now is the price won't come down, because demand will go up.

Icarus

 

If the demand goes up the supply will catch up and eventually the price will fall through economies of scale. I think we're already at the "brand new x386" stage. In 1990 a brand new x386 DX (40 MHz) cost something like $12K!! (not double factorial ) Compare that to what bleeding edge computers cost today (esp if you correct for inflation). WAY cheaper. Seems like that's where the solar industry is at the moment.

 

In a static environment, I would fully agree. But energy is going to get real expensive, real quick. This could change the present market dynamics of PV panels rather significantly.

The present technology PV production capacity would not be able to handle a 1000 fold increase in demand in a short time. The nanosolar approach might be able to do this. This question will be answered before long.

I was just trying to point out that if nanosolar can produce vast amounts of PV panels, that a significantly shorter operational life might be quite tolerable vs. a long life panel that is in crazy demand or vs. electricity that is crazy expensive. I was not claiming that it will become a better choice than present PV technologies for today's market.

 

Tripp,

To counter your point of Tech getting cheaper over time. Yes, it has been true in the computer biz, but this could be different. Computer hardware is quite small, and as such doesn't take a huge amount of any one commodity. A bit of copper, a bit of plastic, some steel some glass etc. The money is in the chips and the intellectual property.

PV solar is much more commodity intensive and if we are talking large orders of magnitude increased production then commodities (silicon especially) that are already in short supply, will continue to be in short supply, and it will get worse. Ergo things may not get cheaper in the short run.

Icarus

 

The computer industry uses loads of silicon. Granted the solar industry is eclipsing that, but silicon is massively abundant. I don't, however, know how most of it is extracted. Is it pure silicon or SiO2? I know it's a pretty energy intensive process, but as we're seeing in the industry, a lot of different methods of panel production are emerging. Competing materials (CIGS) and production techniques (like Evergreens process, and many others) are reducing the amount of Si required to produce a specified number of cells. In the short term there will be constraints, but those constraints have presented a business opportunity that many are already getting in on. The growth in demand will result in a strong incentive to get in on the supply side.

That said, efficiency/conservation is, like you have stated, the bedrock that all of this infrastructure ought to be built on. There's nothin' cheaper than a negawatt.

 

Tripp,

I know less than nothing about how, what, where, or who about it. What I do know is that there has been a world wide shortage. This was beginning to ease before the recent upswing in PV production. Your right it is common, but getting it to a useful form creates the shortages,

Icarus

PS I should do a bit more research on the subject!

 

The big German electricity utility companies certainly think that Nano have made the break-through, as they are buying up as many panels as Nano can produce (the whole first batch has been sold to and installed in Germany).

For a long time I don't think the rest of us will get a look in!

 

Yea,

The real breakthrough is the estimated $1/watt retail. I wish, but I don't expect.

Icarus

 

They've got another big plant in Germany going up now, they've said that you should start seeing these in retail channels some time in 2009.

They've also suggested that they can ramp up production line speeds significantly - the currently running speeds are conservative.