Nanosolar

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Nanosolar, Inc.
Type Private
Founded 2002
Founder(s) Martin Roscheisen
Brian Sager
Headquarters San Jose, California, U.S.
Key people Martin Roscheisen (CEO)
James McNicholas (CFO)
Werner Dumanski
Brian Sager
Erik Oldekop
Industry Solar Energy
Products Solar panels
Revenue US$3,100,000 (2007) [1]
Website nanosolar.com

Nanosolar is a developer of solar power technology. Based in San Jose, CA, Nanosolar has developed and commercialized a low-cost printable solar cell manufacturing process. The company started selling panels mid-December 2007, and plans to sell them at around $1 per watt (one fifth the price of the silicon cells).[2][3][4]

Contents

[edit] Financial backers and manufacturing

Nanosolar was started in 2002 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. The company has received financing from a number of technology investors including Benchmark Capital, MDV, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. Nanosolar received the largest amount in a round of Venture Capital technology funding amongst United States companies during Q2 2006, with 100 million USD of new funding secured[5].

Nanosolar planned to build a large production facility in San Jose and in Germany[6], with an annual capacity of 430 megawatts, enough to roughly triple total American solar cell production, moving the US from third worldwide to second, behind Japan[7]. Nanosolar is also building a panel manufacturing plant in Luckenwalde (Berlin). Several German energy and venture capital companies are heavily invested in this company as a consequence of the favourable economics for solar energy in Germany due to government subsidies.[8]

On December 12, 2007 the company announced[9] that it had started solar cell production in its San Jose factory, with its German facility slated to go into operation in the 1st quarter of 2008. The company said in 2006 that the factory would have the capacity to produce 430 megawatts of cells [10].

On December 18, 2007 the company began shipping their first solar panels for a one-megawatt municipal power plant in Germany.[11]

[edit] Management

CEO Martin Roscheisen is a technology entrepreneur whose three previous technology companies reached a combined value of more than $1.2 billion; [12] EVP Operations is Werner Dumanski who previously led IBM's $4.5 billion storage-disk manufacturing; CFO James McNicholas was Hitachi's top finance executive; and co-founder and VP Corporate Development Brian Sager, a biotech veteran who has advised more than 50 high-growth companies.

[edit] Technology

The company uses copper indium gallium diselenide—which achieves up to 19.9% efficiency in laboratory samples[13]—to build their thin film solar cells. The company's technology gained early industry recognition with the presentation of a Small Times Magazine award at a leading nanotech business event in 2005.[14] Nanosolar's solar cells have been verified by NREL to be as efficient as 14.6% in 2006, with no more recent results announced by the company. [15] Technical details of Nanosolar's new manufacturing techniques have been disclosed in patent applications.[16] Some information about their process has become available in a Scientific American article (in German). [17] These details involve a semiconductor ink that it claims will enable it to produce solar cells with a basic printing process, rather than using slow and expensive high-vacuum based thin-film deposition processes. In Nanosolar's process, the ink is deposited on a flexible substrate (the “paper”), and then nanocomponents in the ink align themselves properly via molecular self-assembly.

Nanosolar has developed a suite of in-house capabilities for creating nanostructured components based on various patented and patent-pending techniques. It uses nanostructured components as the basis for creating printable semiconductors, printable transparent electrodes, novel forms of advanced nanocomposite solar-cell architecture, as well as powerful new forms of barrier films. [18]

According to the company, "leveraging recent science advances in nanostructured materials, Nanosolar has developed a proprietary ink that makes it possible to simply print the semiconductor of a high-performance solar cell. This ink is based on Nanosolar developing various proprietary forms of nanoparticles and associated organic dispersion chemistry and processing techniques suitable for delivering a semiconductor of high electronic quality."[19][20]

Two advantages over earlier technologies is that a printing process is quick and also makes it easy to deposit a uniform layer of the ink, resulting in a layer with the correct ratio of elements everywhere on the substrate. Also, the ink is printed only where needed, so there is less waste of material. Last, the substrate material on which the ink is printed is much more conductive and less expensive than the stainless steel substrates that are often used in thin-film solar panels.[1]

These solar cells successfully blend the needs for efficiency, low cost, and longevity and will be easy to install due to their flexibility and light weight. Estimates by Nanosolar of the cost of these cells fall roughly between 1/10th and 1/5th [21] the industry standard per kilowatt.

The company implies that their solar cells can last more than 25 years by saying they "achieve a durability compatible with our 25-year warranty."[22]

[edit] Discussion

Nanosolar does not publicly disclose the technical specifications or wholesale costs of its modules.[23] As a result, the company's cost and efficiency claims have been treated with skepticism in some quarters.[24][25][26][27][28][29] Concerns have fallen into two main areas:

  1. Product cost. Nanosolar claims to have produced "the world's lowest-cost solar panel."[30] This cost has been variously reported as "cell costs [of] only $0.36 per peak watt,"[31] a "raw uninstalled cost of solar electricity [of] about 40 to 60 cents per watt,"[25] and an "aim to produce the panels for 99 cents a watt."[32] It has been reported that Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen declined to comment on the $0.36 per peak watt figure.[24] It should be noted that a cell cost of $0.36/watt is consistent with a wholesale solar panel cost of $0.99/watt and Nanosolar has not been criticized for being inconsistent in its claims; rather, skeptics have expressed doubt that Nanosolar can produce a product at the costs claimed in the foreseeable future.[24]. Meanwhile, thin-film competitor, First Solar, has announced the achievement of 0.98 dollars per watt, production cost (http://investor.firstsolar.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=201491&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1259614&highlight=).
  2. Technological approach. Proponents of high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells have criticized the thin-film approach to photovoltaics for its lower power conversion efficiencies, arguing that high power conversion efficiency is more economically advantageous to a complete PV system than are the reduced material costs that typically motivate thin-film approaches like Nanosolar's.[33][34] Thin-film proponents argue the converse.

[edit] Competitors

[edit] CIGS

  • Global Solar said that its CIGS cells from its factory had reached an average efficiency of 10 percent [35].
  • HelioVolt Corp. said it had produced CIGS cells with efficiency as high as 12.2 percent on a pilot line[36].
  • Solyndra
  • Miasolé

[edit] Other thin film

[edit] References

  1. ^ Nanosolar, Inc Yahoo Finance
  2. ^ Vidal, John (December 29 2007). "Solar energy 'revolution' brings green power closer". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/29/solarpower.renewableenergy. Retrieved on 2007-12-31. 
  3. ^ "Nanosolar". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/technology/18solar.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin. Retrieved on 2007-12-31. 
  4. ^ "Nanosolar". ubergizmo. http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2007/12/nanosolar_ships_its_first_1_per_watt_panel.html. Retrieved on 2007-12-31. 
  5. ^ "Venture Capital Funding". Investor's Business Daily. 2006-07-24. http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&issue=20060724. 
  6. ^ "Nanosolar Selects Manufacturing Sites". 2006-12-12. http://www.nanosolar.com/pr7.htm. 
  7. ^ "Largest Solar Cell Factory Coming to Bay Area". Globe Street. 2006-06-24. http://nanosolar.com/cache/GlobeSt100MM.htm. 
  8. ^ Bright Days for NanoSolar
  9. ^ "Nanosolar announces start of thin-film production". 2007-12-12. http://earth2tech.com/2007/12/12/nanosolar-starts-thin-film-solar-panel-production/. 
  10. ^ http://www.redherring.com/Home/20207
  11. ^ Nanosolar Ships First Panels from Nanosolar Blog
  12. ^ "Solar Power Heats Up With Nanotechnology". Forbes.com. 2007-09-07. http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/09/nanotech-roscheisen-solar-pf-guru-in_jw_0709adviserqa_inl.html. 
  13. ^ I. Repins, M. A. Contreras, B. Egaas, C. DeHart, J. Scharf, C. L. Perkins, B. To, and R. Noufi., 19.9%-efficient ZnO/CdS/CuInGaSe$_2$ solar cell with 81.2% fill factor. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, 16(3):235–239, February 2008
  14. ^ "Small Times Magazine announces Best of Small Tech Awards at leading nanotech business event". Small Times Magazine. 2005-02-11. http://www.nanotechnology.com/~nanotech/news/?id=7491. 
  15. ^ "Printing Solar Cells (in German)". Bild der Wissenschaft (Scientific American). 2007-01-10. http://www.nanosolar.com/cache/BilddW2_07Nanosolar.pdf. 
  16. ^ Nano-architected/assembled solar electricity cell US Patent 6,852,920, Nanosolar Inc, February 8, 2005
  17. ^ "Printing Solar Cells (in German)". Bild der Wissenschaft (Scientific American). 2007-01-10. http://www.nanosolar.com/cache/BilddW2_07Nanosolar.pdf. 
  18. ^ Nanocomponents from Nanosolar website
  19. ^ Nanoparticle Ink from Nanosolar website
  20. ^ Coated nanoparticles and quantum dots for solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cells US Patent 7,306,823, Nanosolar Inc, December 11, 2007
  21. ^ "Manufacturing Plans". San Jose Mercury News. 2006-06-21. http://www.nanosolar.com/cache/sjmnwl.htm. 
  22. ^ Designed To Last from Nanosolar website
  23. ^ "Nanosolar - Products". Nanosolar.com. http://www.nanosolar.com/products.htm. Retrieved on 2008-02-05. 
  24. ^ a b c Mello, Jr., John P. (2005-03-01). "Breakthrough in Solar Power Nanotech?". TechNewsWorld. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/40971.html. Retrieved on 2008-02-05. 
  25. ^ a b Marshall, Matt (2005-05-05). "Nanosolar keeps solar interesting". SiliconBeat. http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/05/05/nanosolar_keeps_solar_interesting.html. Retrieved on 2008-02-08. 
  26. ^ Hibbard, Brian (2006-06-26). "Bright Days for NanoSolar". BusinessWeek. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060626_804634.htm. Retrieved on 2008-02-06. 
  27. ^ Green, Hank (2007-09-28). "Nanosolar Becoming Leader in Thin Film?". EcoGeek. http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1011/. Retrieved on 2008-02-07. 
  28. ^ "Nanosolar". SolarJoules.com. 2007-12-31. http://solarjoules.com/?p=130. Retrieved on 2008-02-08. 
  29. ^ "Solar Ups and Downs". I'm Seeing Green. 2007-11-24. http://seeinggreen.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/nanosolar-techn.html. Retrieved on 2008-02-06. 
  30. ^ "Nanosolar - Products". http://www.nanosolar.com/products.htm. Retrieved on 2008-02-08. 
  31. ^ Sachitanand, N. N. (2005-02-03). "Breakthrough in solar photovoltaics". The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/seta/2005/02/03/stories/2005020300431600.htm. Retrieved on 2008-02-05. 
  32. ^ Vidal, John (2007-12-29). "Solar energy 'revolution' brings green power closer". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/29/solarpower.renewableenergy. Retrieved on 2008-02-05. 
  33. ^ Kanellos, Michael (2008-01-27). "CIGS cell makers battle it out for efficiency crown". ZDNet.com. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6227812.html. Retrieved on 2008-02-05. 
  34. ^ Swanson, Richard (April 2006). "A vision for crystalline silicon photovoltaics". Progress in Photovoltaics 14: 443–453. doi:10.1002/pip.709. 
  35. ^ http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/qa-global-solar-vps-dish-thin-film-details-718.html
  36. ^ http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/heliovolt-hits-122-efficiency-885.html
  37. ^ http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/nanosolar-creates-largest-thin-film-tool-1023.html

[edit] External links

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