Has Solar Energy Finally Turned The Corner?
The key to making a disruptive solar energy product is to overcome the high cost of the initial installation. Popular Science has awarded its Innovation of the Year award to a company who may well do that starting next year - Nanosolar. Let’s see if they can truly be disruptive.
Here is a key to whether or not Nanosolar will succeed:
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.”
The huge advantage to this technology is the manufacturing process that uses no expensive silicon. With the ability to literally print solar cells on any material, huge avenues of opportunity for innovation open up.
Consider what effect this will have on Nanosolar’s networking opportunities. The obvious partner is roofing material companies. But because they can print the cells on anything, expect to see solar siding, solar car roofs, solar truck roofs, solar parking garage/lot covers, solar air conditioners…anything is possible. The phrase “Nanosolar Inside” could appear on dozens of companies’ products. And the channels for these products are well established.
How about electric companies? They could offer Nanosolar roof installation as a homeowner service, to eliminate the need for costly power plants. This could redefine the meaning of ‘electric company’ - now an entrepreneur could offer you a free solar roof for the privilege of selling you solar energy. And he could sell the excess power back to the electric company at very attractive rates in many states.
Now consider the impact on Nanosolar’s business model of licensing the manufacturing technology to others. This would help overcome the manufacturing capacity issue, and create large streams of additional revenue.
Branding - what kind of emotional response could Nanosolar products generate in customers? Hard to tell. Power isn’t glamorous, but what else are they selling? Independence from foreign energy? An end to global warming? Energy security?
This huge improvement to the solar cell architecture will drive the cost down enough for the technology to be disruptive, especially in areas that have a high potential for solar power generation like the Southwest. Everything else is set in place for the disruption to occur. We won’t know if it will happen until we see Nanosolar-Inside roof shingles at the nearest Home Depot.
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7 Responses to “Has Solar Energy Finally Turned The Corner?”
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I’m wondering about the efficiency of this product. Here in Michigan we have months of low sunlight. There is a company here called Uni-Solar that has incredibly high efficiency, so high that it even works in the shade.
I’ve got my fingers crossed on this one.
@teliczan - I know it is pretty low efficiency, however…Efficiency is not an issue with this at a cost of $.30/watt. With that low cost you can afford to cover a lot of roof space.
Here’s a quote from the CEO of Nanosolar, Martin Roscheisen. He told SiliconBeat, “With 19.5% efficiency under standard test conditions, the best CIGS cell is about as efficient as the best polycrystalline-silicon cell.”
–> CIGS can be as efficient (and durable) as conventional solar cells. CIGS cells can be almost 20% efficient — however, this is at laboratory scale and uses fairly expensive process technology. Companies that seek to produce CIGS modules commercially will generally initially shoot for the 12-15% range as the sweetspot that optimally trades off cost and performance. In this range, CIGS modules are still as efficient as the bulk of the silicon modules on the market today. With further R&D, modules as efficient as 20% can then come to market. [Note that the best other thin-film module on the market today, Unisolar's, is 6.2-6.4% efficient...so CIGS modules will be essentially twice as efficient.]
see link http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/06/09/nanosolar_miasole_stir_up_solar_cell_market.html
[...] In the lead-in to his video, Anderson discusses what the impact would be of having free electricity. This is one of the things that might eventually become free, if companies like Nanosolar succeed. [...]
[...] In the lead-in to his video, Anderson discusses what the impact would be of having free electricity. This is one of the things that might eventually become free, if companies like Nanosolar succeed. [...]
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