Apr

3

Solar Energy Technology – Follow The Money

Posted by cameron

April 3, 2007 |

I have recently been researching how to save money in my retirement years by focusing on the energy issue. Our future energy needs will not be met through current energy spending and the price of fossil fuels will become unsustainable, not only because of its monetary expense but also its environmental cost. I came to a conclusion that the financials are not solid with today’s approach to solar energy through deployment of Photovoltaic photocells. Yet Venture Capital money is pouring into companies in the field. I decided to do a little research on this subject.

Companies can be broken down into two categories, those trying to take existing technology and make it cheaper and those trying to replace that technology to make it more efficient. Either way, the basis of both approaches is still the good old photovoltaic (PV) cell. Following are two companies that epitomize the different approaches:

Stion Corporation is pioneering the use of nanostructure-based PV technologies. Stion’s focus is on making the photocell more efficient. PV cells only react to a relatively small set of wavelengths in the visible spectrum. Stion is working on technology that responds to the entire visible spectrum and possibly beyond. More energy created per minute under the same conditions means less photocells required which means lower cost, in theory anyway. Their approach involves leveraging and optimizing existing advanced technology for nanoparticles specifically for the generation of electricity from solar energy.

“We see this technology bearing fruit some years down the line and therefore we believe that we should be an early investor to help drive that technological development in the future.”

Meaning, it’s quite a ways off. This approach, a radical change from traditional approaches, may just get us the big leap forward required to truly make a revolutionary difference to our energy budget.

Evergreen Solar is a company focused on effective manufacturing of PV cells. Photocells require clean room environments to produce. Traditionally the cell is manufactured in a sheet and then sawn up into the required size cells. Evergreen is using what they call their String Ribbon process to manufacture cells at the right size. This entails pulling two strings through molten Silicon. The Silicon adheres to the strings and also between them. The cell will be as wide as the distance between the strings with a length equal to the distance the strings are pulled. This shaves out the old sawing to size process and lowers cost.

Their advantage is that product is available now. From my perspective it’s probably not enough. Shaving off some manufacturing time is something companies do all the time. I don’t see this giving us that quantum leap needed to compete with the cost of fossil fuels.


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