Another concentrated PV system in pipeline.

[skids]

This one's a fresnel-based window dweller for the "cute and stylish" crowd. The "venetian blind" corner-suspension scheme is especially neat.

The overall system is far less expensive than present solar panels in terms of dollars per watt, Dyson claims, although she won't give an exact number because the group is still negotiating prices with manufacturers. Some costs are lower, even though the gallium arsenide multijunction cells are costly, because the total area of PV material is two orders of magnitude smaller than in a standard system. The concentrators' tracking mechanism and the more complicated installation represent added expenses, compared with regular solar panels. Despite that, Dyson says the system will pay for itself in a quarter or a fifth of the time it takes for silicon solar panels to do so.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct05/1864

[NEOBuckeye]

1. More power to them!

Literally. Solar, Wind and Hydrogen are our future. We're screwed if we can't find viable energy alternatives to oil.

[skids]

2. Well, to be pedantic...

Solar, wind, hydrokinetic, geothermal, and I'd broaden the "hydrogen" category to "proton exchange membrane" because there's nothing really special about hydrogen itself -- lots of easily produced energy-containing compounds can be used that way -- most appealing of late being +/- vanadium solutions.

(Unless you were referring to the heat-exited atomic hydrogen experiments, but that's still fringe science unless the results are verified and widely replicated.)

[suziedemocrat]

3. AWESOME!!! Especially for Office Buildings!

How many times have you seen office buildings with the blinds pulled to keep out the hot/bright sun, and all the lights on?

I think Solar is about to come of age. Combine the progress with solar (and even wind and other renewable energies) with new building materials which are much more insulative, and I think within 15 years, most new homes and office buildings built will be net-zero or off-the-grid.

Personally I think "Big Oil" and the Bush Admin know this. They also know we are running out of oil and the environmental damage we have already done is catching up to us. I think they know their current business models are not going to be big money makers for very much longer. I think they want to make as much money as possible before "disruptive" technologies eliminate their source of income. (Go ahead - give me a tin-foil hat now.)

[NEOBuckeye]

4. They ought to be levied with a 95% earnings tax for alternative energy

Greedy bastards that they are.

[dcfirefighter]

5. Hmmph. 95% tax

Funny thing is - most of the profit these companies' make isn't from anyone's labor or ingenueity...unless it's ingeneuity in securing a title to an oil well. Tax the crap out of their right to do so. Won't raise prices a dime - they compete in a global market, and sell oil at the global price.

[philb]

6. How could something in a window have a tracking mechanism?

[dcfirefighter]

7. by having a thick window, two layers 6" apart or so. n/t