New solar panel technology: 40 cents pr watt. (50% cheaper than China / Competes with fossil fuels)

[TalkingDog]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122231-solar-panels-made-with-ion-cannon-are-cheap-enough-to-challenge-fossil-fuels

As it stands, almost every solar panel is made by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick (0.2mm) wafer from a block of crystalline silicon. You then add some electrodes, cover it in protective glass, and leave it in a sunny area to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect (when photons hit the silicon, it excites the electrons and generates a charge). There are two problems with this approach: Much in the same way that sawdust is produced when you slice wood, almost half of the silicon block is wasted when it’s cut into 200-micrometer slices; and second, the panels would still function just as well if they were thinner than 200 micrometers, but silicon is brittle and prone to cracking if it’s too thin.

Twin Creeks flexible solar panelThis is where Twin Creeks’ ion cannon, dubbed Hyperion, comes into play. If you look at the picture above, 3-millimeter-thick silicon wafers are placed around the outside edge of the big, spoked wheel. A particle accelerator bombards these wafers with hydrogen ions, and with exacting control of the voltage of the accelerator, the hydrogen ions accumulate precisely 20 micrometers from the surface of each wafer. A robotic arm then transports the wafers to a furnace where the ions expand into hydrogen gas, which cause the 20-micrometer-thick layer to shear off. A metal backing is applied to make it less fragile (and highly flexible, as you see on the right), and the remaining silicon wafer is taken back to the particle accelerator for another dose of ions. At a tenth of the thickness and with considerably less wastage, it’s easy to see how Twin Creeks can halve the cost of solar cells.

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Big news! This looks interesting too."MIT creates solar cell from grass clippings"

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/116689-mit-creates-solar-cell-from-grass-clippings?obref=obinsite

[Bandit]

2. Most people in the USA pay less than ten cents a kilowatt.

A kilowatt is a thousand watts. At forty cents a watt that would be about four thousand dollars a kilowatt..I think something is wrong here..

[The Doctor.]

3. That's "cost to manufacture", not 'price of energy'.

It costs $.40 to create a portion of the solar cell that produces one watt at a time.

[zipplewrath]

5. Just a guess

Guessing they mean 40 cents per watt of producing capability. Not kilowatt-hours which is what I think you might be talking about. It would make a kilowatt panel cost about $400, which ain't bad.

5 hours per day producing 1 kilowatt for 5 years is about 4 cents per kilowatt hour. Not too shabby.

[bvar22]

6. The old panels had a useful life that exceeded 20 years.

This is exciting.

[zipplewrath]

8. Not so much

I'd be curious which panels you mean. There were serious drop offs in efficiency after 5 -8 years. The weather could be hard on the panels.

[bvar22]

13. I bought hodge-podge some 8-10 year old panels rated 750 watts (cumulative) ...

...at a serious discount in 2001, and installed them on a houseboat in the Mississippi River near St Paul.
I routinely clocked over 650 watts, and that is at a very Northern latitude where nobody achieves rated output from brand new panels.
I was very happy with them.
If you can get +80% rated output from a 10 year old panel that is practically free, what is the problem?
The only thing I was NOT happy about was the 1/2 ton of very toxic lead/acid batteries I had to install along the keel.

I would readily buy old panels again, at a discount,
IF our rural electric Co-Op would update to a Buy Back Grid.
We're not going to bring a ton of Lead/Acid batteries to our new, very rural location (Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas).
There will need to be a serious breakthrough in a storage medium, or a Buy Back Grid before we can consider Solar or Wind.

We are intrigued by the hi-capacity/fast charge lithium batteries installed in the newer Electric cars,
and if an opportunity comes along to buy some at [salvage prices, we may open that door,
but they are pretty toxic too.

[zipplewrath]

14. That's very good performance

You're right about the storage. There are losses in the voltage conversions as well, not to mention inverters and the like. Buy back/sharing is probably the best solution.

[Ready4Change]

7. Your math is wrong, too.

$.40 a watt would be $400 a kilowatt, not four thousand.

[TalkingDog]

9. Manufacturing Costs. New technology = much less waste. Less waste = lower panel price.

Reading the ARTICLE helps.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Another PR piece about a an approach that is no where near the market

I am a big believer in PV solar. However, the field is ripe with hucksters and PR releases taken being sold as major breakthroughs.

***IF*** this approach has merit, lets see when it gets it to the market and what the prices will be then. Until then its a PR release and nothing more.

[TheWraith]

11. "New solar panel technologies" are a dime a dozen.

I can't count the number of reports over the last 5 years or so about some new technology that's going to make solar panels cheaper than ever. Usually, they turn out to be more hype than substance, either not working as well or as cheaply as promised, or being 10 years away from practical production. A couple years ago it was that "printable" solar panels were going to come out by the gigawatt and be too cheap to meter. Before that concentrated solar power, stirling engines, solar thermal, a dozen different flavors of PV panels, etcetera, etcetera. I'll believe it when you can buy it on eBay for the promised price.

[uponit7771]

12. Is this more vaporwhare?!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Hard to tell at this time

Yes its a PR piece, but not all of them are fraudulent. The technology is continuing to evolve and that is clearly a good thing.

My approach is smile at them and see where they are in terms of the market in a few years. Some will make it, many will not.

[fascisthunter]

16. AWESOME!!!!

...sorry for yelling...