Next Generation Solar: Ready For Prime time?

[Shoelace]

sorry if this is old news. I'm still pretty new here but trying to catch up with energy news here.

April 17, 2007 – Vol.12 No.4

NEXT GENERATION SOLAR: READY FOR PRIME TIME?

Honda is developing them, so is Shell in its venture it calls Avancis. Less familiar names are also working on what could be the next generation of solar cells and thus solar products: DayStar Technologies, HelioVolt, Nanosolar, W¸rth Solar and Odersun.

Those next-gen cells, CIS (Copper Indium Selenide), and their close cousins CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide), offer solar-to-electric conversion efficiencies about the same as silicon solar (efficiencies in the mid to high teens) but conceivably could be offered at a much lower cost.

The reason? CIS and CIGS are very thin, thin-film solar technologies, a 100th or thinner than traditional silicon. Very thin equates to very little material is needed to make them: The less material, the less cost.

Yet the commercialization of CIS and CIGS technologies has been slowed by adequate high speed production methods. CIS and CIGS cells are difficult to make. Difficult to produce means high costs despite the lower cost of materials.

Now, however with two companies in Germany, the race for low cost, CIS thin film solar mass production may have begun.
>snip
Solar to electric conversion efficiency is about 10 percent, a little less than conventional silicon solar, but efficiencies are less important as costs drop.

Aside from the potential cost savings of Odersun’s CIS thin film solar, thin also means flexible. Flexible means a wider variety of applications. The ribbons can be laid side by side in strips to make any sized solar product.

The company will begin making small flexible solar panels that could be applied to a women’s handbag or perhaps a backpack for portable solar power, as well as conventionally-sized solar panels for use on roofs or ground-mounted solar powerplants. Other possibilities include solar window shades and awnings. Only one production process is needed to make a variety of solar products
(more at link)
http://www.green-energy-news.com/arch/nrgs2007/20070051.html