THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for the ‘Green Living’ Category

GE Sees More Casualties in Wind and Solar

(Reuters) – General Electric Co. expects increased competition and a reduction in subsidies by cash-strapped governments to lead to more companies exiting the wind and solar power businesses, but the industrial behemoth still sees growing long-term demand.

“There’s going to be a lot of casualties in the wind and solar businesses, there already are in solar,” John Krenicki, who leads GE’s energy division, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

The U.S. may see an uptick in orders in 2012, prompted by the expiry of government incentives at the end of the year. However, the outlook for government support in the U.S. and Europe, in part do to economic woes, was not positive.

“I don’t expect a 100 percent withdrawal of credits but I expect change, so maybe less,” he added.

Nonetheless, GE expects the long-term demand for wind equipment to continue growing, especially as technological improvements made even the most economically challenging parts of the industry less reliant on legislated support.

GE Energy manufactures thin film solar panels and systems and is one of the biggest players in the wind turbine manufacturing business.

 

GE to Make Thin Film Solar Panels

GE has confirmed long-standing speculation that it plans to make thin-film solar panels that use a cadmium- and tellurium-based semiconductor to capture light and convert it into electricity. The GE move could put pressure on the only major cadmium-telluride solar-panel maker, Tempe, AZ-based First Solar, which could drive down prices for solar panels.

Last year, GE seemed to be getting out of the solar industry as it sold off crystalline-silicon solar-panel factories it had acquired in 2004. The company found that the market for such solar panels–which account for most of the solar panels sold worldwide–was too competitive for a relative newcomer, says Danielle Merfeld, GE’s solar technology platform leader.

As you may have heard, solar power is well on its way to rivaling coal and other traditional energy sources. In fact, costs are set to drop significantly in the next year or two. So the question becomes, which type of solar panel technology should you invest in? Which material is cheapest, and how efficient is it? The answer, friends, is thin-film solar. And its efficiency climbs every day.

Thin-Film Solar Panel Systems

Thin-film solar is hot. Many people find the sleek, paper-thin design more aesthetically pleasing than bulk solar, and it allows for all kinds of amazing building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) applications. Thin film is what makes it possible for solar to be coated on the facade of a building, for example, built into portable electronics or integrated discreetly onto window shades.

And advancements continue to emerge. Last month, thin-film solar cells made from copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) reached an astounding 18.7% efficiency in laboratory tests. Using CIGS for thin film is ideal, but has yet to be implemented on a large scale.

So how much can you expect thin film to cost per watt? According to the NREL and Department of Energy:

“Costs are expected to drop to below $100/m² in volume production, and could reach even lower levels—well under $50/m², the DOE/NREL goal for thin films—when fully optimized. At these levels, thin-film modules will cost less than 50 cents per watt to manufacture, opening new markets such as cost-effective distributed power and utility production to thin-film electricity generation.”

Thin film is the technology to watch for in coming months. My guess is it paves the way for high-efficiency solar panels, ultimately driving costs down and solidifying the nationwide uptake of solar power we all know is overdue.

 

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