High Hopes Of Photovoltaic Electricity Price Cut

[jpak]

http://www.carbonfree.co.uk/cf/news/wk41-0001.htm

Ascent Solar Technologies says that the Ascent Solar alliance that has been collaborating for several months in response to President George W. Bush’s Solar America Initiative, plans to produce an entirely new series of “plug and play” products for the nation’s commercial and residential building markets.

Using Ascent Solar’s thin film photovoltaic (PV) technology on plastics, large photovoltaic modules in roll formats will be integrated with various construction materials to produce multiple Building Integrated PV (BIPV) products for commercial and residential applications. The new “plug-and-play” module designs should eliminate the vast amount of wires, cables, connectors, junction boxes, and conduit required in current systems. Ascent Solar expects that PV system integration will be reduced from weeks to days for systems as large as 600kW and that, based upon U.S. Department of Energy cost models, the cost to produce electricity will be reduced from 20¢/kWhr to 5¢/kWhr.

Ascent Solar President and CEO Matthew Foster states, “The potential to create enormous demand in the market for PV generated electricity is real. As the cost of solar generated electricity approaches that of fossil fuel generated power, BIPV growth could expand exponentially. The Solar America timeline and cost targets show the potential for this happening as early as 2010. Our vision is to see the day when BIPV will become pervasive as a building and construction material much like plywood is today and become affordable for all in need of low cost electricity from a natural resource that is free, abundant, and available to everyone.”

The key to realizing the day when low cost PV systems produce electricity more cost effectively than fossil fuels is low cost manufacturing of modules and system components. Ascent Solar plans to employ manufacturing methodologies similar to the successes in the semiconductor industry by scaling manufacturing equipment and processes to run faster and wider. Monolithic integration of cells into modules during manufacturing should completely eliminate the entire back-end assembly operation of today. Ascent Solar estimates that the new BIPV roll formats can offer reductions in the number of discrete modules by as much as 90% for a typical PV system deployment, and provide flexibility to cover up to 35% more area. When combined with the “plug and play” product improvements, the multiplying effect on cost should be remarkable.

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[eppur_se_muova]

1. BUILDING INTEGRATED PV -- sounds like a threshhold has been crossed, if

every new building is a candidate for off-the-shelf integrated local generation. This is very encouraging.

Thanks, jpak! :hi:

[orwell]

2. 5 cents per kWhr?

Where do I sign up?

[mom cat]

5. Me too!!

[suziedemocrat]

3. K&R - come on we need a 5th!

[bahrbearian]

4. isn't this something Al Gore brought up 6 years ago

[Javaman]

9. yes it is. another idea that the fucking moron* stole. nt

[progressoid]

6. Cool!

[carzen]

7. recommended

[glitch]

8. Tried to R could only K, Dang this is exciting! nt

[w4rma]

10. Imagine a nation of buildings covered in efficient solar cells.

I think that might end our overseas oil problems.

One day this will be a *huge* industry. If you are starting college, you might want to start learning about this now because it looks like the industry will start taking off when you graduate in four years.