solar panel revolution drastically lower costs

[liberty16]

Originally Posted by scotte

I'll believe it when I see it.... *SIGH*

Anything that's backed by the founders of Google *has* to be revolutionary. Those guys don't miss a trick...

[scotte]

Originally Posted by liberty16

Anything that's backed by the founders of Google *has* to be revolutionary. Those guys don't miss a trick...

Don't get me wrong, I want this to succeed, and I agree if anyone can do it and bring it to the public cheap, it will be Google! I'm just amused at the announcements we hear a couple times of year for the revolution in cheap solar that never seems to happen. This would really be great!

I do think Nanosolar's approach is brilliant - instead of focusing on efficiency, just focus on bringing down the cost. It seems to me if it's cheap(er) that will drive demand. Demand will drive innovation. And that resulting innovation will drive the efficiency.

I'll believe it when I see it.... *SIGH*

I’m sad that I have to agree with Scotte. Seems like there has been a solar panel revolution just a few years away for the last 20years that I’ve been following. I remember going to lectures on Cold Fusion, man that was an exciting time. When I can go on line or down to a bricks and mortar place and buy the panels, well, then I’ll be sold

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by Jones5962

I’m sad that I have to agree with Scotte. Seems like there has been a solar panel revolution just a few years away for the last 20years that I’ve been following. I remember going to lectures on Cold Fusion, man that was an exciting time. When I can go on line or down to a bricks and mortar place and buy the panels, well, then I’ll be sold

I can understand your sceptisim (sp?) but what impresses me is that they have started selling things already:

Nanosolar Blog

and are sold out for 2008.

Thanks for the link, Read the blog, I’ve increase my excitement level to 2 When the technical data sheets are available and low volume customers can buy them, then who knows maybe a 3 I see where the CEO says profitability at $1/watt, but I can’t find an actual selling price. My guess is that the actually selling price will not be substaincally lower than current tech until there are more competitiors. Lot’s of pomises but since it’s a private company there really is no way of knowing whats really going on.
But I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by scotte

we hear a couple times of year for the revolution in cheap solar that never seems to happen.

We have a Solar powered car race from darwin to Adelaide through the desert centre of Australia. This year the leading Australian car was 5 years old..........


Get it? If there were advances in Solar Power a 5 year old car should be last....

[TaoJones]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

We have a Solar powered car race from darwin to Adelaide through the desert centre of Australia. This year the leading Australian car was 5 years old..........


Get it? If there were advances in Solar Power a 5 year old car should be last....

The way I read the results of the 2007 World Solar Challenge, teams from other countries are producing better vehicles. That they all happen to be solar powered is merely the unifying characteristic.

The way the teams generate power for their vehicle is probably little different from team to team, but the relative weight of each vehicle, how each is driven, and luck probably have more to do with the final results.

http://www.wsc.org.au/Media.Centre/R...2007103101.pdf

TaoJones

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

The way the teams generate power for their vehicle is probably little different from team to team, but the relative weight of each vehicle,

Yes, and when are we likely to start driving a 1 midget car with push bike wheels? I'd like to see the challange with a regular size car

[44'cruisingcat]

Cheap solar panels can't come soon enough for me. Trouble is they probably WON'T come soon enough. I want about 400 watts - these things could save me heaps if they were available.

[rebel heart]

I've also been stung by the "IN 5 YEARS SOLAR PANELS WILL WORK 20X BETTER AND COST 1/3 AS MUCH BECAUSE OF THIS!!!!" articles. I know it's coming, and I know it will be great, and I really hope this is the real silver bullet.

If they can find a way to undercut the existing solar industry that much, it will seriously usher in an entirely new way of making electricity. Beyond yachts, you can have electrical generators everywhere at that price. I'd mount some on the tops of my spreaders if it was cheap enough.

The company sure is hiring a lot, that's a good sign:
Nanosolar - Careers

Maybe we can all collectively buy $50K worth of panels from them. If there's a good warranty in it, I'm good for atleast $2K of that.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

undercut the existing solar industry that much, .

By how much?
Just think... You are the only company in the world with this new technology that you could sell for $10 whereas all the old stuff is being sold for $100.

Are you going to sell it for $10?????????????????

No.

You'll sell it for $90!

Bottomline is instead of paying $800 for a Kyocera 175 you could get one from Nanosolar for around $175.

I bet the Nanosolar will come in at $700...

[Tropic Cat]

Without technical data, it's a non starter for me.

What concerns me is how proud they are about abandoning increased efficency for cost reduction. Could this possibly mean that a 100 watt panel is a 4 foot by 8 foot panel??? (1.5 x 2.5 meters)???

No mention whatsoever on the size of the product and first application/sale is not sensitive to size.

I'll wait...

[rebel heart]

That's what google did, and it worked for them. When hotmail and yahoo were still trying to sell email accounts for $20/year with attachment limits, google offered a much better service, minimal ads (way less than hotmail / yahoo), and drastically increased storage for free. The competition was crushed and still hasn't regained.

I'm in the process of writing a business plan myself right now, and my goal is to get the price much lower than the competition, but still have enough margin to be profitable, in that order. If I can undercut the competion by 80%, I'd love to. If I only undercut by 10%-20%, it's still debatable which service you'll buy. But if I can sell them a solar panel for $40 that you'd otherwise by for $100, the amount of market share I'll get is insane.

I would own the *entire* market, and my competition would be stunned from their over inventory and lack of cash flow. I'd probably bankrupt a few of them in the first few years if I could market it quick enough.

----------

Edit: the size of the panels is obviously important. I'm talking apples to apples here. If they try to sell a rotten peanut and call it an apple, well then, no dice.

[schoonerdog]

No, they're efficiency will be around 12-15%, slightly less than monocrystalline, so the size of the panel will be slightly bigger for the same amount of power. But, CIGS can easily match silicon with a bit more tweaking, which will be happening. Also the weight of the panel should be significantly less. Again, it's not pie in the sky technology (I've bought those in the 90s), it's selling right now.

Regarding price, it will go much lower because Miasolar and a Japanese firm have similar low cost production mechanism that haven't yet been brought to market. I remember doing monopolistic pricing models in economics and you don't sell at just below the competition. Instead remember for every dollar they bring down the price they are drastically boosting their volume of sales. And their competition from their business models aren't other solar manufacturers for small little projects, they are aiming at OPEC and Coal power producers. I know things tend to get really hyped by sensationalistic media, but we are looking at something very groundbreaking. Expand their production capacity 10 fold, put in sensible legislation helping home buyers, this is one of those things where it's impacts will in 10 years change a lot of the global economic forces. The large alberta oil fields become obsolete, cars like the chevy volt replace everything else, opec becomes something for the history books, Dubai becomes a ghost town, governments which had previously used oil revenue to prop up despotic regimes fall. Wow. Had a real Jesuit moment there.....

Regarding press links, it's everywhere. Popular Science Magazines product of the year, NY times, LA times, artical today in the Washington Post.

Originally Posted by rickm505

Without technical data, it's a non starter for me.

What concerns me is how proud they are about abandoning increased efficency for cost reduction. Could this possibly mean that a 100 watt panel is a 4 foot by 8 foot panel??? (1.5 x 2.5 meters)???

No mention whatsoever on the size of the product and first application/sale is not sensitive to size.

I'll wait...

[senormechanico]

These sound more like a good fit for a house roof, not a boat.

Steve B.