Solar Cells Info

27 Feb 2007
Source:  http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=104935

Chemists, physicists, materials scientists and electrical engineers in Manchester and London are embarking on a £1.5m project to develop new and potentially cheaper ways of generating solar power. The three and a half year project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), will investigate a number of new and novel solar cell designs, in an attempt to produce a more efficient system for generating green energy.
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Solar start-up wants to double the amount of light going into a solar cell to boost output and lower overall cost.
By Martin LaMonica /Staff Writer, CNET News.com /February 22, 2007
Source: CNet news
http://news.com.com/Solaria+shines+light+on+high-powered+solar+panel/2100-11392_3-6161457.html

Solaria, a solar electric start-up, has devised a novel way to get more power from a solar cell: chopping it up into many pieces.  The company’s CEO, Suvi Sharma, gave an early peek at his company’s products Wednesday at Piper Jaffray’s Opportunities in Alternative Energy investor conference in New York.

Solaria is one of several companies pursuing solar concentrators as a way to increase the output coming from solar cells. Solar concentrators use optics, such as mirrors or lenses, to focus sunlight onto the solar cells that convert light to electricity. By magnifying light, designers can generate more power from solar cells made of silicon and other expensive materials. Rather than dramatically boosting the sun’s power, Solaria intends to only double the light’s rays in its initial products, which are coming out this year, said Sharma. A future product, due next year, will triple the light’s intensity.
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Source: ErSol Press Release 21 February 2007
http://www.ersol.de/en/pm.php?type=pm&id=129&year=2007

* Sales doubled in 2006 to € 127.8 million and EBIT to € 20.3 million
* 2007 will be marked by strong expansion activities
* Significant boost in earnings and sales in 2008
* Continued focus on technological progress – cooperation with US company
Silicon Valley Solar Inc. (SVS)

ErSol Solar Energy AG (ErSol), Erfurt has once again closed off the previous financial year with record results. Based on preliminary calculations, consolidated sales grew in 2006 by 98% to € 127.8 million (2005: € 64.4 million) following the Group’s capacity expansion, deliveries already accrued, thanks to the long-term raw materials agreements concluded in 2005, and the integration of the silicon-recycling subsidiary SRS in financial year 2006. Earnings have also shown disproportionate growth despite start-up costs for new business segments: earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were more than doubled to € 20.3 million (2005: € 9.5 million) and the EBIT margin grew to 15.9% (2005: 14.7%). ErSol has also recorded a sharp growth in earnings before taxes (EBT): EBT increased to € 19.7 million (2005: € 9.5 million).
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By Jessica DiNapoli /Sun Senior Writer   / Feb 26 2007
Source: The Cornell Daily Sun
http://www.cornellsun.com/node/21656

“I’m not going to lie, I work a lot — probably from 8 a.m. until 1 a.m.” said Adam Farrell ’06. “But I party just as hard.”  Farrell has a jam-packed agenda as co-founder of Silicon Solar — a company with over 82,000 customers and estimated sales of $5 million that is expanding across America and into China. “We have over 300 products, from small innovative type things to solar hot water systems,” said Patrick McDonough ’06, sales and marketing for Silicon Solar.

One such product is a solar light that sits atop real estate signs, so that they light up at night. Silicon Solar had humble beginnings as a high school earth science project: as Farrell worked on his project, he realized that he could save money. So, instead of purchasing solar cells from Radio Shack for $5, Farrell looked into buying solar cells in bulk from a warehouse in Massachusetts. In bulk, the cells cost about ten cents. “That’s a pretty good margin,” Farrell said.
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26.02.2007
Source: Aleo Solar AG /press release
http://www.presseportal.de/story.htx?nr=946325&ressort=7

Prenzlau/Oldenburg – Aleo Solar AG has signed a contract package with Q-Cells AG, doubling the delivery volume of solar cells  under two existing contracts. Only a few days ago, Aleo solar announced the conclusion of a supply contract with Q-Cells for its Spanish manufacturing subsidiary in Barcelona. All in all, Aleo Solar has now signed medium- and long-term contracts with a total of three prominent suppliers. The total volume of contractually secured solar cells for the next 10 years amounts to well over 600 MWp.

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By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard / 18 Feb 2007
Source: Telegraph – UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml

Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels.   Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom, says he looks forward to the day – not so far off – when entire cities in America and Europe generate their heating, lighting and air-conditioning needs from solar films on buildings with enough left over to feed a surplus back into the grid.
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Bonnie Eslinger, The Examiner  /Feb 22, 2007
Source: Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/a-579028~S_F__seeks_partner_for_solar_program.html

SAN FRANCISCO – The City is ready to partner with a private company to develop large-scale solar power facilities — and has $100 million of bond revenue to bring to the table — Mayor Gavin Newsom announced at a gathering of green technology entrepreneurs and investors Wednesday. Although voters approved a $100 million revenue bond measure in 2001 to pay for solar equipment on city-owned buildings, that money has gone unspent because of a restriction that required each solar project to generate power that would cost the same or less than using electricity from the traditional power grid, according to Tony Winnicker, a spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
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By Sharon Kedmi / Feb 22, 2007
Source: Haaertz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/828955.html

After years of delays and postponements, a tender for building Israel’s first solar-power plant is to be issued this year. The 250-megawatt plant will be built on 4,000 dunams (1,000 acres) in the Ashalim complex in the Negev. In 2001, the cabinet decided that by 2007, 2 percent of the country’s energy production – or some 300 megawatts – would come from alternative-energy sources. To date, only 5 megawatts are being generated by such plants.
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Derek Sands /UPI /February 20, 2007
Source: Middle East Times
http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070220-044724-3240r

CAIRO —  Egypt may soon harness the same physics that a child uses to burn an ant with a magnifying glass, to generate electricity from the sun, a move that reflects the growth of Concentrating Solar Power technology worldwide. Plans to build a 150 megawatt (MW) combined solar- and gas-powered electric plant near Cairo are part of a larger effort by Egypt, and others in the region, to expand their use of renewable energies, including solar, wind, and nuclear power.

The Egyptian project, set to be built in Kuraymat, 104 kilometers (65 miles) south of Cairo, will use parabolic-trough Concentrating Solar Power, a technology that has been used on a limited scale for more than 20 years, but has recently attracted attention in the Middle East because of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and due to concerns over the future of petroleum supplies.
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House of Representatives passes new legislation enabling the installation of a solar energy system on Federal building.

by Sara Parker, Staff Writer, Washington, DC  / February 14, 2007
source: RenewableEnergyAccess.com
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=47438

In many scenarios by leading renewable energy experts and advocates, placing solar systems on all Federal buildings has long been on the list of breakthrough strategies to boost the U.S. solar power industry through government procurement. That scenario is now one step closer to becoming a reality with the Solar Net project.  On Monday, the House of Representatives passed new legislation for the installation of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) building — with hopes that the project will serve as a model for other government buildings.

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