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Technology Review on Solar Energy |
HenryTo
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 Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:14 am Post subject: Technology Review on Solar Energy |
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Assembly line should be ready by sometime next year:
| Quote: | | Much more efficient solar cells may soon be possible as a result of technology that more efficiently captures and uses light. StarSolar, a startup based in Cambridge, MA, aims to capture and use photons that ordinarily pass through solar cells without generating electricity. The company, which is licensing technology developed at MIT, claims that its designs could make it possible to cut the cost of solar cells in half while maintaining high efficiency. This would make solar power about as cheap as electricity from the electric grid. |
Story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18415/ |
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Technology Review on Solar Energy Replies |
HenryTo
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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It's so concentrated on state subsidy with grid parity some 300% efficiencies away--and the the biggest "market," stepping back (and simultaneously embracing coal as a political counter to Russia).
Thermal shows the way forward.
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HenryTo
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HenryTo
Site Admin
Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 11742
Location: Los Angeles, California
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HenryTo
Site Admin
Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 11742
Location: Los Angeles, California
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HenryTo
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Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 11742
Location: Los Angeles, California
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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Google flips on solar installation:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32526/113/
| Quote: | | The roof mounted cells generate 1.6 megawatts which is enough electricity for about 1000 homes. Google says the solar cells will give about one-third of the campus’ electrical needs. |
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:11 am Post subject: |
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| A 2015 target sounds good to me - but if we have some kind of rolling brownouts or natural gas/coal price spike again over the next few years, then this could come faster than we initially anticipated. |
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HenryTo
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Location: Los Angeles, California
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| Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:08 am Post subject: |
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More latest news on solar energy from Technology Review:
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18910/
| Quote: | Such high output may be just the beginning. Raed Sherif, director of concentrator products at Spectrolab, says there is every reason to believe that these metamorphic solar cells will top 45 percent and perhaps even 50 percent efficiency. Sherif says those efficiencies, combined with the vast reduction in materials made possible by 1,000-fold concentrators, could rapidly reduce the cost of producing solar power. "Concentrated photovoltaics are a relatively late entry in the field, but it will catch up very quickly in terms of cost," he predicts.
Sherif says that right now his company is focusing commercialization efforts on the older and better-known designs, which currently deliver 35 to 37 percent efficient modules and could improve to 40 percent efficiency within two to three years. But he says the metamorphic approach is more likely to achieve the 45 percent efficiency level the company hopes to hit within six to seven years. Sherif estimates that a 40 percent module would reduce overall cost by about 14 percent if Spectrolab holds at its current $10-per-square-centimeter module price, while a 45 percent cell would trim system costs by an additional 9 to 10 percent.
Boeing anticipates further cost reductions as other components improve or are mass-produced. Under a $29.8 million concentrated-photovoltaic development partnership with the Department of Energy announced this spring, Boeing promises to cut the delivered price of electricity via concentrated solar to 15 cents per kilowatt hour by 2010, from an estimated 32 cents per kilowatt hour today, and to cut that price in half again by 2015. That would make solar power less expensive than electricity from the grid in much of the United States, where the average price of electricity in recent months has been about 10 cents per kilowatt hour. |
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