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Energy innovation holds out promise

LONDON: The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer on Friday as thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium film rolled off a production line in California.

The solar panels produced by Silicon Valley start-up Nanosolar are printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil. They are flexible and light, and according to the company, will make it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal.

Nanosolar said its order books were full until mid-2009 and that a second factory would soon open in Germany where demand for solar power has rocketed.

“Our first solar panels will be used in a solar power station in Germany,” said Erik Oldekop, Nanosolar’s manager in Switzerland. “We aim to produce the panels for 99 US cents (less than Rs. 40) a watt, which is comparable to the price of electricity generated from coal. We cannot disclose our exact figures yet as we are a private company but we can bring it down to that level. That is the vision we are aiming at.” The first panels produced were aimed for large-scale power plants rather than homeowners. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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