Solar Cells Info

By Brandon Reed, Madrid, Oct 10, 2007
Source: Reuters UK
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL1051297620071010

Photovoltaic solar power plants are springing up throughout Spain, capitalizing on special tariffs for renewable energies and exceeding the government’s expectations.  With the current momentum, Spain will be over its target for 2010 of 400 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) power by next summer, possibly having somewhere between 800 MW and 1,200 MW, according to the Industry Ministry.  “We already have 80 percent of the target,” Industry Minister Joan Clos said at a European energy conference in Madrid earlier in October.
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Student inventors are gathering at the Solar Decathlon in Washington to vie for the top prize and create a new generation of green homes.
By Marc Gunther, Senior writer, FORTUNE Magazine, October 15 2007
Source: CNNMoney.com
http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/12/magazines/fortune/solar_decathalon.fortune/
The clean energy homes of tomorrow are on display all this week on America’s Main Street, the national mall in Washington, D.C.- and they are generating excitement from the FORTUNE 500 companies, government advocates for renewable energy and even some venture capitalists. They are there as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, a contest in which 20 colleges vie to build energy-efficient, sustainable, attractive and affordable homes. The results can be eye-popping.
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Kilometre-sized solar panel arrays would gather sunlight in orbit, then beam it to Earth in the form of microwaves or a laser.
Dan Cho, Washington, DC, 11 October 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Source: New Scientist-Environment
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12774-
pentagon-backs-plan-to-beam-solar-power-from-space.html

A futuristic scheme to collect solar energy on satellites and beam it to Earth has gained a large supporter in the US military. A report released yesterday by the National Security Space Office recommends that the US government sponsor projects to demonstrate solar-power-generating satellites and provide financial incentives for further private development of the technology.
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By Martin A Green / 08 October 2007
Source: ScienceAlert – Australia & New Zealand
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20070810-16428.html

Photovoltaics – direct sunlight conversion into electricity using solar cells – has long been lumped with nuclear fusion as one of the great hopes for a boundless, clean energy future, although recent fusion interest has shifted to the more difficult ‘aneutronic’ version, which reduces fusion’s radioactive wastes but is even further in the future.  Unlike fusion, the technical viability of photovoltaics has long been established, with this occurring in applications requiring extremes of reliability and durability. Since the early 1960s, photovoltaics has been the main power source for space missions of any duration. Closer to home, it has been the standard power source for telecommunications in remote areas of Australia since the early 1980s. In the same timeframe, there was the view that the photovoltaics industry would grow steadily to a size where it would suddenly take off, as reducing prices opened up new market sectors. Wise heads debated how large a growth rate an emerging industry could sustain over a prolonged period, with a compounded rate of 25 per cent a year a consensus view.
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Thermal-power plants that store heat for cloudy days could solve some of the problems with solar power.
By Peter Fairley / September 27, 2007
Source: MIT Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19440/

Solar proponents love to boast that just a few hundred square kilometers’ worth of photovoltaic solar panels installed in Southwestern deserts could power the United States. Their schemes come with a caveat, of course: without backup power plants or expensive investments in giant batteries, flywheels, or other energy-storage systems, this solar-power supply would fluctuate wildly with each passing cloud (not to mention with the sun’s daily rise and fall and seasonal ebbs and flows). Solar-power startup Ausra, based in Palo Alto, thinks it has the solution: solar-thermal-power plants that turn sunlight into steam and efficiently store heat for cloudy days.
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Large-scale manufacturing techniques used to build LCDs could make solar power far more competitive.
By Kevin Bullis, October 02, 2007
Source: MIT Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/19464/

The big manufacturing equipment that has helped bring down costs for flat-screen TVs based on liquid-crystal-display (LCD) technology may soon bring prices for solar electricity more in line with prices for electricity from the grid. Applied Materials, a company based in Santa Clara, CA, that supplies manufacturing equipment to LCD makers, as well as to major microchip makers, has converted its equipment to produce thin-film silicon solar cells that are cheap enough to compete with more conventional solar cells. This may eventually lead to much cheaper solar power.
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by Josh Wolfe, SIFY business watch /Oct 9, 2007
Source: SIFY
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14540309

Solar energy-related stocks are hot. In the first half of 2007, there was a record $4.7 billion in capital raised in solar-based IPOs, according to U.K.-based research firm New Energy Finance. That’s more than double the amount raised in new solar issues during all of last year. Venture capital and private equity funding for solar firms reached new highs as well, totaling $1.4 billion in the 12 months ending June 2007. Much of this isn’t just pie-in-the sky financing. According to RBC Capital Markets, annual profits will reach approximately $7.7 billion in the solar sector this year and grow to $11.5 billion in 2011.
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San Jose, CA, October 4, 2007
Source: EE Times
http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202201012

Ascent Solar Technologies Inc., a developer of thin-film photovoltaic materials, has obtained more funding from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The goal is to increase the funding of Ascent Solar’s development of thin-film tandem photovoltaics (PV), based on monolithically integrated CIGS technology. The contract modification represents up to $749,000 of additional contract value over a 27-month period.
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Nuying Huang, Taipei; Esther Lam, DIGITIMES, 4 October 2007
Source: DigiTimes
http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20071004PD212.html

Neo Solar Power, a Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation (PSC)-invested solar cell subsidiary, is seeing buoyant orders with a utilization rate hitting a record high in September.  Orders are strong with no inventory left at all, Neo Solar stressed. The solar-cell maker noted that its utilization rate hit 120% with an actual output of 3.02 peak megawatt (MWp) in September. Annual capacity will reach 60MWp in 2007, following the completion of its second production line in November. The company reiterated that it aims to house a total capacity of 500MWp in 2010 to be the third-largest solar cell maker.
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Nuying Huang, Taipei; Esther Lam, DIGITIMES, 9 October 2007
Source: DigiTimes
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=PD3217&query=SOLAR

Taiwan solar cell makers are seeing rising cost pressure as some of their polysilicon wafer suppliers in China are doubling the deposit required when signing new contracts. Whether or not Taiwan-based silicon wafer suppliers will follow suit also remains a concern.  Industry sources indicated that some China-based wafer makers have revised up their deposit ratio from 5% to 10% for mid- and long-term contracts. They added in saying that Taiwan-based solar cell makers who have recently made supply agreements might have already face such an adjustment.
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