Solar power's secret recipe

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_7145428

Solar power's secret recipe

START-UP WON'T SAY HOW IT MAKES ITS SILICON INK BUT PREDICTS IT WILL DRAMATICALLY CUT THE COST OF SOLAR POWERBy Matt Nauman
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:10/11/2007 01:36:45 AM PDT
Conrad Burke, the CEO of Innovalight, walked into a room with a small solar cell in one hand and a bottle of black liquid in the other. He's betting that liquid will revolutionize the solar panel industry and help his company grab a big share of the booming green energy market.

The liquid is silicon ink, a secret nanotechnology recipe it developed that the company says lets it make solar cells that are more efficient than current models, at a lower price.

"We have embarked upon . . . a new frontier of silicon," said Burke, who joined Innovalight as president and chief executive in 2005.

Innovalight comes out of stealth mode today. It will announce $28 million in new funding as well as plans to open a 30,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale early next year.

The company, based in Santa Clara, intends to start selling its solar cells in 2009.

...

Innovalight creates nanoparticles of silicon that it uses to make ink "and we can end up with something that looks not very different from what a solar cell looks like today, except we got there substantially faster and cheaper, and we use less material," he said.

The goal is to achieve "double digit" efficiency, higher than current levels for other thin-film-based solar cells, although Burke wouldn't reveal a specific number. The industry standard is 14 or 15 percent, although some companies talk about reaching 20 percent efficiency. Efficiency measures the percentage of absorbed light converted to electricity.

As far as price, Burke talks about producing solar cells that are an order of magnitude cheaper than what's available today. "Certainly, long term, we believe this technology has the potential to get well below 50 cents a watt," he said. The Web site solarbuzz.com says the retail price per watt in the United States is $4.84 this month.

That combination of new, affordable technology makes Innovalight interesting to the Department of Energy. The agency has worked closely with Innovalight on collaborative research, said Craig Cornelius, its program manager for solar technology.

"We see great promise in the company," said Cornelius. "They're building a great science team."

...

[BrklynLib at work]

1. Thanks for posting. Very interesting news.

[groovedaddy]

2. I seem to remember a French company with an innovation

for photo voltaic cells that would greatly reduce the cost of solar panels. This was a few years ago but I've heard nothing since.

[kenfrequed]

3. two seperate solar power news bits in one day!!!

This seems like a good sign to me!



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