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Optical Furnace Bakes Better Solar Cells
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory just announced that they have found a way to create more efficient photovoltaic cells using 50% less energy. The technique hinges upon a new optical furnace that uses intense light instead of a conventional furnace to heat silicon to make solar cells. The new furnace utilizes 'highly reflective and heat-resistant ceramics to ensure that the light is absorbed only by a silicon wafer, not by the walls inside the furnace.'"
IGBT's are cheap. Capacitors are cheap. PWBs are cheap. Microcontrollers are cheap. You don't need big and expensive magnetics (transformers/inductors) if you are not doing voltage level up shifting. Inverters can be made very inexpensively if development costs are spread over enough units, but the material and production costs are relatively low compared to what companies charge for them, so the prices for these could fall significantly given enough competition in the market.
I worked on an optical/ceramic-walled metallization furnace that started shipping a year ago. Apparently our US marketing people didn't come up with sufficiently catchy buzz to generate sales. I was laid off in September after documenting all the assembly procedures for our new plant in ... Shanghai :-(