$1 per watt solar panels

On December 21, 2007 in Solar News

Found this on Slashdot today:

“A Silicon Valley start-up called Nanosolar has shipped its first solar panels — priced at $1 a watt. That’s the price at which solar energy gets cheaper than coal. While other companies have been focusing their efforts on increasing the efficiency of solar panels, Nanosolar took a different approach. It focused on manufacturing. ‘The company [has developed] a process to print solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide, a combination of elements that many companies are pursuing as an alternative to silicon.’”

According to InfoWorld, Google is backing them. This is great because google has so much damn money that they might be able to make the shove needed to once and for all bring the cost of solar electricity down significantly.

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we will be seeing $1/watt photovoltaics any day soon, because the first commercial panels will become part of a Nanosolar exhibit; the second will be auctioned off on eBay; and the third will be donated to the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, from what this news.com article says. In the same article, it mentions that

“In a previous interview, Roscheisen said all of Nanosolar’s anticipated production in 2008 has already been ordered.“

So it looks like it will be at least 2009 before I can get my hands on these $1/watt solar panels they are raving about..

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