Nanosolar - Finally clean and cheap solar energy

By: Federico Pistono

27 Dec 2007

Now now... can somebody tell why solar energy did not become ubiquitous in the World? The answer is very simple, it's expensive. Typically a house needs 3KW per hour of energy, and to achieve that with solar panels you would spend about ~~$40,000~~ $34,000. Even with the ~~55%~~ incentive that the Italian government gives you it's nearly impossible to consider it affordable for an average family. The rest of the world offers has slightly similar conditions, some a bit better and some other a bit worse.

The bottom line is: Solar power is way too expensive to be used at a large scale. A typical installation will need circa 20 12 years to recover the cost and start saving money. That of course does not take into account the whole picture, in fact the entropy of the system dramatically decreases, having no oil, no coal, no nuclear waste, no CO2 emissions and so on you are actually living sustainably as far as the environment is concerned.

But when it comes to money, no matter how sensitive about the environment you are, there is no way you can afford that kind of expense. Until now.

ENN reports that for Nanosolar of San Jose, California - and perhaps the rest of us - December 18, 2007 was an historic day. It was the day the company shipped the world’s lowest-cost solar panel. The company believes it can be the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at 99 cents per watt.

At that price solar energy becomes less expensive than coal, even when the cost of an entire system is considered. The US Department of Energy says a new coal plant costs about $2.10 per watt plus the cost of fuel and the cost of damaging emissions. There is no fuel cost with solar energy, nor any direct damage to the world.

The San Jose, California company has already attracted more than $100 million in venture capital investment, including big checks from Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and other well-known Silicon Valley luminaries.

"This is the first time that we can actually drop the cost of solar electricity down to a level that would be competitive with grid electricity in most industrialized nations," says Brian Sager, the company's co-founder, in an CNBC interview.

"We're fully sold out for the next year, once our plant is up and running," Sager says. That plant, under construction right now in South San Jose, is over 200,000 square feet and will be the epicenter of a brand new technology. The new facility will build enough solar cells to generate 430 megawatts of power, which would turn it into one of the world's largest solar power producers.

This isn't about expensive, slow-to-build silicon panels. Nanosolar has created a new, patented, spray-on film that can be printed on a flexible foil material, and then rolled out on any surface. Soon, the same technology will be incorporated into a new generation of roof tiles; even window coverings.

"Solar panels have not been very popular to the American people because they've been too expensive. That's what we're changing now," says Martin Roscheisen, another of the company's co-founders.

Nanosolar's secret sauce is just that: a patented glop of metals and nanoparticles that work together once they're exposed to sunlight, absorbing light and then producing energy. The substance is then sprayed on a durable foil by machines that look like giant newspaper printing presses. The process dramatically speeds up the manufacturing process.

"We're trying to achieve fantastic scale," says an early Nanosolar investor, Eric Straser from Mohr Davidow Ventures. "But we're really doing it in a way that achieves a cost breakthrough at the same time."

Says co-founder Roscheisen: "We've had tens of thousands of inquiries from people around the world."

9 comments
environment, solar energy, Technology

9 Responses to Nanosolar - Finally clean and cheap solar energy

Steve

Thursday, December 27, 2007 - 17:09 reply quote

That would be great! My garage roof is just waiting for such an array as it faces south and would be just the place to generate power.

Federico Pistono

Friday, December 28, 2007 - 18:46 reply quote

I hope to see that in every house. Try contacting them , I already did. If they see lots of requests the market will start to grow in that direction.

Hopefully.

Alessio Guarnieri (not verified)

Friday, December 28, 2007 - 13:10 reply quote

Hai scritto un po' di cavolate questa volta...
Andando per ordine un impianto da 3 kWp costa dai 20 ai 23000 € indicativamente, che significa dai 30 ai 34000 $, sempre indicativamente, che sono sempre tanti ma 6000 $ in meno fanno...in secondo luogo il governo italiano NON incentiva il 55% dell'impianto, il governo italiano rilascia un incentivo sulla produzione dell'impianto per i primi 20 anni di vita dello stesso, che è ben diverso.
Terzo, un impianto fotovoltaico con queste condizioni ammortizza il suo costo nel giro di 10-12 anni circa, non 20, e dopo questo periodo non si risparmiano soldi, si guadagnano!
Infine un impianto fotovoltaico non è una spesa, è un investimento alla pari di un BOT, c'è una spesa iniziale che può essere affrontata in diversi modi (pagamento diretto, finanziamento), l'ammortizzamento del costo e l'incasso della rendita.

Il prodotto di cui hai parlato lo conoscevo già, mi pare di avertene anche parlato una volta: è certamente un ottimo inizio, uno sviluppo tecnologico importante, ma mi pare davvero troppo presto per parlare di rimpiazzo della tecnologia a silicio monocristallino; il monocristallino resta una tecnologia si costosa, ma d'altra parte anche testata e certificata per una lunghissima longevità.
Con questa tecnologia sono stati infatti costruiti impianti che continuano a funzionare egregiamente da 35 anni, senza problemi di sorta, mentre invece andando a parlare di nuove tecnologie come il film sottile ci infiliamo in un campo minato: mancano ancora riscontri degni di nota sulla produttività dei prodotti rispetto al monocristalllino e appunto sulla longevità del film.
Mi spiego meglio: se un prodotto costa un terzo dell'altro ma dura un quarto non conviene; se un prodotto costa un terzo dell'altro a parità di superficie di copertura ma ha un quarto della resa non conviene, perchè ci andrà 4 volte la superficie dell'altro per produrre la stessa potenza.

Sono tecnologie da tenere sott'occhio per me, ma ancora non mi butterei su quel tipo di prodotti, ne tantomeno li installerei in casa mia, almeno fino a che non ci saranno dati chiari in merito.

Peace.

Federico Pistono

Friday, December 28, 2007 - 13:41 reply quote

Thanks for the corrections, to be honest I just wrote the article down with the flow, didn't double cjeck the exact data that I remembered by heart.

I'm moving the discussione in Italian to the Italian post.

I am not a coward... Massimo (not verified)

Monday, December 31, 2007 - 15:35 reply quote

What Federico writes is certainly partially incorrect, but to be honest it is really not affordable to all Italian families the contruction of a solar plant. And the more is not affordable, the less it the people that will build such plants. The industry producing panels would not have that boost needed to increase production, therefore lowering cost.

A way to overcome such standstill situation are the kind of operation that through the web site in the subject few fellows are trying to organize (me included): we are about to start the installation of two plants in Cuneo Province with money coming from dozens of "investors" (it is not an investment, I disagree with Alessio: it is not an investment, neither a cost...right now, by my point of view, is a "philosophy"...); I do hope that these two plants will help to spread the construction of such plants in the Province, but also in the rest of Italy; this should lead in having potential entrepreneurs interested in starting building here in Italy the panels: till we buy from Germany or Spain the panels, the cost of plant will never drop.

Federico Pistono

Monday, December 31, 2007 - 16:08 reply quote

Having a significant drop in prices and a widespread system of local production of solar energy will start a virtuous circle from which we will all benefit, hopefully.

The problem, in fact, as you mentioned, the price still too high and the difficulty in storing the energy.

Steve

Monday, December 31, 2007 - 16:37 reply quote

Don't be so pessimistic! So what if Federico's numbers are off a little - it was the point he was making that was important. Besides, in a few months or a couple of years from now all of his corrected numbers will be wrong again.

Also, as with any new technology, it takes time for the cost to come down and become affordable for everyone. Just think back to when cars, televisions, telephones and dozens of other everyday things we have today were only for the wealthy.

The cost will come down - eventually. I can envision the day when I see used solar panels in re-sale shops as I see old computers and monitors today and costing only a few bucks.

Have a little faith!

Federico Pistono

Monday, December 31, 2007 - 17:20 reply quote

Steve wrote:

The cost will come down - eventually. I can envision the day when I see used solar panels in re-sale shops as I see old computers and monitors today and costing only a few bucks.

Have a little faith!

I really hope to that, too, Steve. I'll have faith, even though I know big oil companies and corporations will always be on the way, crossing roads. When it comes to energy politics is really compromised:

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.asp?Ind=E01

Steve

Monday, December 31, 2007 - 23:48 reply quote

I mostly agree, but I think the kind of power a solar array on my house would produce would be replacing energy from companies that use natural gas or produce electricity mostly with coal and not from oil or petroleum. The oil companies tend to block energy sources or innovations that would reduce the use of oil as electric cars or hybrids might do.

Actually if you have solar power and you produce more than you can use, you can sell the extra power back to the electric company. I just saw a program yesterday that a movie star in CA set up a very large array and instead of paying $38,000 a year in electric costs for his large estate he now pays $13 and that was only for the taxes and administrative fees associated with having and account. He sells quite a bit of his power back to his local utility.

Of course he spent $750,000 to build his array with all of the other components, but the state refunded him about half of it. So, the cost is still high, but it can be done if you have money and hopefully (in my lifetime anyway) the cost will come down and as I have a much smaller estate (ha,ha) I'm sure it will be worth it.