Cheaper And Lighter Photovoltaic Cells From Global Solar
By Nick April 18, 2008
Global Solar Energy has been testing photovoltaic for the last 11 years and finally they announced the development of thin-film flexible photovoltaic cells that can produce solar panels very cheap, at one third to one half of the current prices.
The company has opened a new 40-megawatt, 100,000 square foot factory last month, with a capacity of ten times more than their previous one.
“We’re sold out for the next year at a price that ensures we’re profitable,” Mike Gering stated, Global Solar Energy’s president and CEO. He also said that “There’s a big difference between production and the laboratory. We’re in production. We can replicate this time after time.”
Their flexible photovoltaic cells are already being used by the U.S. Army in the portable solar field battery chargers. Unlike the new product, the one used by the U.S. Army was less durable and efficient and not suitable for rooftops.
Global Solar Energy has achieved more than 10 percent efficiency for the flexible solar cells, in December, last year, which is very good for it’s really cheap products. Though, the 10 percent efficiency is an average, not the best, so in the future they might be able to increase it. There are other companies that develop photovoltaic cells with efficiency of up to 13 percent, but much bigger and expensive, so their advantage is also the lightweight.
Other companies, like First Solar, use cadmium telluride deposited on glass, but Global Solar uses CIGS, a semiconductor material that can be applied on stainless steel foil at high temperatures and then printed with a conductive contact of metal ink, cut into the sizes they need, assembled and laminated into plastic or glass.
Once with their factory opening, they also placed a 750-kilowatt field, the largest CIGS photovoltaic field in the world, that will generate about 1.1 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy per year. Also the field allows them to test their latest technologies at a large scale, for improvement and research.
Topics: Energy |
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