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Solyndra's Thin-Film Solar Cells Draw $1.2 Billion In Orders
SolarSells writes "Solyndra makes funky-looking cylindrical solar cells that resemble compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Their products are meant for office buildings, and are made from a thin coating of copper indium gallium diselenide on glass tubes. Although they might not be able to fill them till 2012, the company has already received $1.2 billion in orders. Their manufacturing tricks make the cells so cheap that they may be competitive with other forms of power even after solar subsidies are phased out."
It's good to see that people still invest in alternative sources of energy. $1.2B in pre-orders can't be bad and (I think) shows a great sign of faith in these technologies.
"What Gronet envisions is solar panels installed on your average Home Depot or Ikea, generating a substantial percentage of the company's power needs right on site."
This is the best possible outcome of the energy crisis: an efficient, sustainable, and most importantly decentralized power infrastructure. Let's hope these technologies really do take hold.
Just like they demolish your home's windows, and your car's windshield....
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It may be that the tubes are used with concentrating reflectors, so that the back side is in fact the highest output and the front side is just a little extra from the direct illumination. The tube design would also allow a fluid to be circulated to pick up any heat gain that would go along with the concentrating reflectors.
Since when are home windows and car windshields cheap to replace?
The windshield does not represent the majority of the value of the car, nor do windows represent a majority of the value of the home, such that you end up buying a new car or new home every hail storm.
Solar cells do represent the majority of the cost of solar cells, though, so hail damage basically == full replacement. IOW, they have to completely pay themselves off between hail storms to break even*
*if they are insufficiently protected from the elements, that is.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The windshield does not represent the majority of the value of the car, nor do windows represent a majority of the value of the home, such that you end up buying a new car or new home every hail storm.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay for the full replacement of a drinking glass than pay to have a windshield replaced.
Whether or not it's a full replacement is a pretty meaningless distinction.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
If you've already got 1.2 billion dollars in orders, you can probably throw a little bit of money towards automating your production line. And while I don't know much about the specifics of this particular product, solar panel manufacturing is generally a fairly high precision activity, and often involves raw materials that aren't the most healthy substances for humans to be around. A nice, clean, automated production facility is ideal for solar panels.
This isn't a couple of guys who started a business out of their garage last week. They've already done the bulk of the messy design work, and they're moving on to mass production. They're probably still doing more of the hands-on design work as well, but it likely happens in a whole separate building from their factory.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.