[TWIAR] New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production

[Greg Williams]

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14932

New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production
Colorado's State Univ.'s panels will cost less than $1 per watt.

Compiled By Adrienne Selko    
Sept. 10, 2007 -- Colorado State University's method for manufacturing 
low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA 
Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the 
technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at 
Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 
500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will 
power 40,000 U.S. homes.

Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce 
the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and 
businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost 
as traditionally generated electricity.

Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for 
solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film 
instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the 
process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a 
very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply than with 
existing technologies. The cost to the consumer could be as low as $2 
per watt, about half the current cost of solar panels. In addition, this 
solar technology need not be tied to a grid, so it can be affordably 
installed and operated in nearly any location.

The process is a low waste process with less than 2% of the materials 
used in production needing to be recycled. It also makes better use of 
raw materials since the process converts solar energy into electricity 
more efficiently. Cadmium telluride solar panels require 100 times less 
semiconductor material than high-cost crystalline silicon panels.

"This technology offers a significant improvement in capital and labor 
productivity and overall manufacturing efficiency," said Sampath, 
director of Colorado State's Materials Engineering Laboratory.

Sampath has spent the past 16 years perfecting the technology. In that 
time, annual global sales of photovoltaic technology have grown to 
approximately 2 gigawatts or two billion watts -- roughly a $6 billion 
industry. Demand has increased nearly 40% a year for each of the past 
five years -- a trend that analysts and industry experts expect to continue.

By 2010, solar cell manufacturing is expected to be a $25 billion-plus 
industry.

-- 

Gregory S. Williams
gregwilliams(at)knology.net
k4hsm(at)knology.net

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