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Robo solar: Nanosolar’s new, fully automated solar-panel manufacturing facility near Berlin, Germany, which makes thin-film panels based on the CIGS semiconductor, could lower the price of solar power.
Nanosolar
The new manufacturing plant, which assembles Nanosolar's solar cells into panels, will also help reduce costs. The plant is completely automated, using robots and other equipment, and can process solar cells more than twice as fast as conventional solar-panel factories, Roscheisen says.
Even with these improvements, however, it will be difficult for Nanosolar to compete, especially given current economic conditions. The low costs that Roscheisen cites are attainable only if the plants are operating close to capacity. And so far, actual production is very low. While the new solar-panel plant is designed to make 640 megawatts' worth of solar panels a year, its current output is only one megawatt a month. That's because Nanosolar's panels are not yet "bankable." That is, the technology hasn't been proven to the point that banks are willing to finance large projects that use the panels.
And Nanosolar has plenty of competition. Prices for solar panels have recently dropped significantly, in part because demand has dropped, creating an oversupply, and in part because manufacturing technology for conventional solar panels has improved. Roscheisen says Nanosolar can make solar panels for less than First Solar, which is known for having the lowest manufacturing costs in the industry. But Bradford isn't sure the company will be able to sell its panels at a low-enough price to undercut existing manufacturers and become bankable. "Roscheisen's theory is right," he says, "but market conditions might not allow it to come to reality."
ArrayPower says its "sequenced inverter" will cut the cost of solar by more than 10 percent.
A performance boost for "small-molecule" solar cells could make the materials more practical.
A new design has funding through a White House initiative to develop cheap solar panels.
Technology Drives Economic Viability
The magic of this story is the economic story, driven by the technology story. As companies like this drive down the cost curve toward and past grid parity to the point that solar is CHEAPER than old-school technologies, the floodgates open for the transition. And nanosolar apparently has better PV technology, better process technology, as well as good strategic thinking.
Once these players pass grid parity, then they're playing in a $4Trillion/year global electricity market. That's a $4,000 Billion per year market for the math majors!:) put that in your VC pipe and smoke it! I think this is a great technology story, a great economic story, a great national security story, and a great environmental story, for that matter.
They won't saturate this market for a long, long time.
I'm not buying the second-to-last paragraph about Nanosolar running the plant at only 1MW/month because the panels aren't "bankable". That's just not plausible.
This is a company that says that they can make and sell solar panels for less than $1/watt, while their competitors are selling for $2.75/watt or more. Given that a large number of solar projects are done without any financing at all(think about government buildings, highway signage, third-world charity projects, well-to-do businesses and individuals), Nanosolar could easily sell every panel that they make for $2.50/watt - a substantial profit margin.
I'm really cheering for Nanosolar because they seem to have a breakthrough technology that could finally provide grid parity with fossil fuels. However, in 2007 they said that they had the capability to make 430MW/year, and made next to nothing. In 2008, they showed a video saying that they could make 1000MW/year, and they made next to nothing. Now, they say that they have a plant capable of making 640MW/year, but they're only making 1MW???
I'm still holding out hope for this, but something's not right here.
Being in the industry I get at least 4-6 emails from Chinese PV manufacturers each day wanting to sell their product.
Lowest price offer so far,factory door,has been US$1.75 per watt.
Tried to see if I could purchase from Nanosolar a couple of times but was told that they weren't interested in selling into the Australian market.
Makes one wonder about their marketing strategy.
Though I've never been to Australia, and though I'm aware that most of the relatively small population is concentrated along the coasts, given the bright and sunny Outback, I would think there would be some reasonable marketing potential for a solar company there. But then, you guys have teams working at warp speed on this stuff, too, as I recall. Hell, if outsiders don't want to sell to you, but Aussie!
I know we all want to save the enviroment, but why waste you wallet? I looked at solar panels a while back and they were $1000+ each! Then I finally stumbled upon this site that shows you now only how to build your own solar panels, but wind turbines as well. It cost me just a little over $100 each per solar panel, which is more than twenty times less that some solar panels. For more info visit http://8ac8d615gjld9o63blzc8m0teg.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=EARTH4
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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jpm1u
14 Comments
go solar
It's great to see these companies come online. As they say... competition breeds success (and lowers price). I relish the day when it's affordable to put a whole slew of PV panels on my house and have an EV in the garage.
As an aside: If I was a CA legislator, I would be embarrassed by Nanosolar's factory in Germany. It's also an embarassement to the US as a whole because of all the "green jobs" talk. However, I am still delighted to see another solar company get up an running.
Reply
Guest (Bob61984)
Re: go solar
Nanosolar is manufacturing their thin film (their "cells") in San Jose and shipping rolls of the film to their German plant to assemble the panels. It's a lot more efficient that way.
Germany got on board early and contracted for Nanosolar's initial output.
Look for them to build assembly plants in other countries (including the US) as their thin film capacity increases.
Reply
kbillet
60 Comments
Re: go solar
Hum,
"It's a lot more efficient that way."
Oh, I see, you manufacture all these rolls of material. Then load them onto trucks, transport them to an Airport, load them onto Airplanes, fly them across the Atlantic Ocean to Germany, unload the Airplane and truck the rolls to the factory warehouse, and unload them to a storeroom. Then you load them and fork truck them to an assembly line for use.
Yea! That does seem a lot more efficient than setting an assemble station at the output of the material and then using just-in-time processes to Assemble panels right there.
This is what is wrong with our country.
You want to sell me the broklyn Bridge?
It's all about company loyalty to it's country and it's people. Apparently Germany has it and the US companies could care less. The real value added is in Germany where the assembly occures. We, the US citizens are probably subsidizing the research.
Best Regards,
Reply
mkogrady
425 Comments
Re: go solar
Obama, Reid and Pelosi pitched the Green Concept to get or keep their jobs, then failed to actually use our tax dollars to do anything that set the pace for the nation. Instead of TARP, they should have "ordered" 50 new Solar Plants to manufacture stuff here at home, then employed 1000's of workers putting up solar farms on Government controlled land. Once momentum had achieved criticality, then they could sell the plants at a fair market value so it could be run as a new industry. By manufacturing one single part at these locations, there would be huge volumes produced. On top of that, since all 50 states are not necessarily Union or Right to Work - we would have had competition between US workers.
They screwed up and us!
Reply
lasertekk
146 Comments
Re: go solar
Is it just me, or do other readers of TR see articles like this existing more as thinly veiled advertisements than true pieces of technical or scientific information? I can't help but think someone is getting bribed, er, payed to write them.
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prlsol
3 Comments
Re: go solar
Ummm, do you mean paid?
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Siphon
152 Comments
Re: go solar
Yes, a sad development. Has the Technology in Technology Review taken a long vacation? Or is TR popularizing to reach a wider public? And if it's advertising, how much are you guys getting paid? Maybe some of us want in on the deal as well. Who said solar can't be profitable ;)
And where is the market if this technology is coming to it? On this topic, NanoSolar has some red flags. Cost claims are unverifiable, there aren't a lot of installations despite GW production talk... of course that gives financing issues!
Advanced solar panels have already come to market. Thinfilm CdTe, thinfilm Si.
These guys are several steps behind other thinfilm leaders. Their technology has to be really good to catch up and grab market share. Then again as the other comment said, more competition keeps the market sharp and pressure on innovation, so I wish NanoSolar the best.
Reply
Kevin Bullis
178 Comments
Re: go solar
The decidedly critical comments on the second page of the article may explain why the check never arrived.
RE: CIGS and CdTe. CIGS is worth following because, in the lab, it's achieved significantly higher efficiencies than CdTe.
But I agree: the way the market looks now, it's very unlikely that Nanosolar, or most of the other companies developing CIGS, will be able to break into the market--at least in any big way. First Solar and the conventional silicon cell and panel makers are just too far ahead.
Reply
joezxcvbnm
1 Comment
Re: go solar
I'd like to believe in this, but I don't.
I walked through the remains of the AstroPower building in Newark Delaware. The solar panels on the face of the building were nothing more than a facade. They were not wired to anything and most likely were not capable of generating electricity. The only literature found in the building were booklets for potential investors. There was no sales literature because no products were ever produced. The company owner received millions in investment dollars and government subsidies, pocketed the money, declared bankruptcy, and lived happily ever after.
So I wouldn't invest my life savings in Nanosolar until I actually see customers using their product.
Reply
rhansing
74 Comments
Re: go solar
Why is the tiffany ad in the comment section?
Regarding being paid, the Federal Trade Commission has recently made a ruling making it illegal not to give full disclosure if bloggers are being paid.
ron hansing
Reply