{"id":380,"date":"2010-01-10T00:02:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-10T07:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=380"},"modified":"2010-02-04T23:35:01","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T06:35:01","slug":"big-nano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/big-nano\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Nano"},"content":{"rendered":"

A solar cell manufacturer that boasts of 100 times thinner panels than current silicon solar cells, and production rates\u00a0100 times faster than with the methods usually employed in the industry will definitely catch our attention.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nanosolar<\/a>, of San Jose, California, makes a CIGS-based solar film\u00a0claimed to be thinner and much less expenive (ultra-low cost, according to Nanosolar) than silicon-based panels.\u00a0\u00a0CIGS stands for copper\/indium\/gallium\/selenium, the primary components of the new\u00a0film.\u00a0\u00a0Coated\u00a0onto a thin aluminum substrate, the\u00a0CIGS ink is literally printed on, the nanoparticles providing a demonstrated efficiency of up to 16.4-percent, verified by the National Renewable Energy\u00a0Laboratory (NREL).\u00a0\u00a0Initial production runs are producing panels of at least 11-percent efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Nanosolar foil<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While\u00a0currently only half as efficient as the best production\u00a0silicon solar cells, the high-speed manufacturing process promises to enable low-cost installations and future improvements in\u00a0efficiency\u00a0would\u00a0lead to the\u00a0light, flexible, powerful panels that could make solar-powered or augmented\u00a0flight a commonplace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company’s white paper <\/a>on their technology should give readers an insight into a promising new development in solar cells.\u00a0 With plants producing foil in Germany and San Jose, and with orders of over $4 billion, Nanosolar seems to have a bright future, indeed. <\/p>\n