Method for $1/Watt Solar Panels Will Soon See Commercial Use

An anonymous reader writes "A method developed at Colorado State University for crafting solar panels has been developed to the point where they are nearly ready for mass production. Professor W.S. Sampath's technique has resulted in a low-cost, high-efficiency process for creating the panels, which will soon be fabricated by a commercial interest. 'Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity. Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply than with existing technologies.'"

Comments

Re:Back of the envelope

[goombah99]

I don't dispute that there's a big pile of assumptions there. The thing is there is geometric rate of increased consumption in power and we are not building new capacity at a parallel rate. As consumption curve starts to hit the production cruve the cost of power which has varied little for decades is going to go through the roof. 25 cents per KW-hour will seem like a pipedream in 2040.

Since this may seem implausible consider this. The world is on track to double its energy consumption by 2040. To reach that point in a linear fashion--not geometric one--would mean bringing on line three gigawatt class power plants every day from now until then. Right now the figure is about 10 GW plants per year because we are in early long tails of that geometric growth curve.

About now your jaw should be dropping as you ponder the implications.

Thus what has to happen, other than permanent blackouts in most of the world and carbon poisoning of the planet, is that the growth rate must be stifled. And that is going to happen when the price of electricity hits ~$10/KW-hour and all then people will economize and buy energy saving appliances.

I did not make up those numbers. read the 2030 report from the department of energy.

So I was being generous assuming 25 cents per KW-hour grid rates.

Of and by the way, note that the plant for solars cells will produce 200MW /year. That's a drop in the GW/day bucket.