Thin-Film Solar Startup Debuts With $4 Billion in Contracts

Thin-Film Solar Startup Debuts With $4 Billion in Contracts
By Alexis Madrigal September 9, 2009 | 5:46 pm | Categories: Energy

A startup with a secret recipe for printing cheap solar cells on aluminum foil debuted today, in what could end up a milestone for the industry.

Nanosolar’s technology consists of sandwiches of copper, indium, gallium and selenide (CIGS) that are 100 times thinner than the silicon solar cells that dominate the solar photovoltaics market. Its potential convinced Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to back the company as angel investors in its early days.

Two big announcements marked its coming out party: The company has $4 billion in contracts and can make money selling its products for $1 per watt of a panel’s capacity. That’s cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels in markets across the world.

Specifically, the company’s management thinks it can help utilities avoid the difficulties of getting big coal and nuclear power plants built by offering the option to build small solar farms they can set up close to cities.

“Cost-efficient solar panels such as ours can be deployed in 2- to 20-megawatt municipal solar power plants that feed peak power directly into the local distribution without requiring the expense of transmission and with a plant deployment time as short as six months,” said Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Coal or nuclear can’t do that, can’t do it as cost efficient and can’t do it as rapidly deployable.”

Thin-film solar has been a major focus of U.S. alternative energy research and development efforts since the early 1980s because it was seen as a true “breakthrough” solar technology. Silicon cells are easy to manufacture, dependable and efficient, but some researchers viewed them as inherently limited. As they are currently produced, they require a lot more silicon than thin-film solar cells. They might reach efficiency levels of over 40 percent, but they’d never compete with fossil fuel energy sources, even with carbon taxes.

Thin-film solar was different. On the one hand, it was definitely harder to make efficient cells. However, it allowed researchers to dream of printing semiconducting chemicals onto a metal sheet and having it convert photons into electricity. Thin-film cells seemed like they’d be perfect for the applications researchers imagined like “solar shingles” for building-integrated solar installations.

Thin film was promoted as the technology that would bring photovoltaics to the masses at prices competitive with fossil fuels.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory worked steadily on thin films throughout the 1990s, but no technology seemed to work well outside the lab. It turned out to be really difficult to actually manufacture thin-film solar cells.

Then First Solar exploded onto the solar scene in 2005 with a cadmium-telluride thin-film cell. Their manufacturing costs dropped rapidly and soon they had billions of dollars in contracts, largely with utilities. Yesterday, they signed a two-gigawatt deal with Chinese officials. Now, investors value the company higher than American, Delta, and United Airlines combined. First Solar has become the bar and the target for Nanosolar, and the dozens of other thin-film market hopefuls.

What could set Nanosolar apart is the way the company actually gets its semiconductors to stick to the metal foil. Most companies use various techniques executed under vacuum conditions; Nanosolar prints its solar cells.

“What separates them from the rest of the companies is that they have developed a process to make CIGS cells which involves non-vacuum technology,” said Miguel Contreras, a thin-film solar researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “This is a very generic description, but what I’m pointing out is that by having a wet chemistry process, they are able to save quite a bit of money in terms of capital equipment.”

The base for their cells — the aluminum foil — is plentiful and cheap, which the company says has cost and manufacturing advantages.

Earlier this year, First Solar claimed it started manufacturing solar cells for less than $1 per watt. Nanosolar says it can go cheaper. They also took aim at First Solar in a recent whitepaper (.pdf) for utilities, claiming their “balance-of-system costs” (all the other stuff beyond the solar cells themselves) will be lower.

It’s big talk for a company that hasn’t really entered commercial production, but Nanosolar has a half a billion dollars in venture funding and some bleeding-edge technology. Beyond the contracts they’ve won, they announced that NREL testing found their cells to be the most efficient printed solar cell on record at 16.4 percent.

Even though the competition among solar companies is heating up, there is plenty of room for multiple players in the expanding renewable energy markets. Competition can drive innovation and cost reductions, too, which would be good news for solar energy advocates. After major cost drops in the early ’90s, the average solar module’s cost hasn’t been declining very quickly.

If companies like First Solar and Nanosolar continue to grow, they will drive that average price closer to competing with fossil fuels. First Solar will be producing about a gigawatt of panels this year. Nanosolar’s production is tiny, by comparison. They have a 640-megawatt facility, and are ramping up production from their current megawatt per month of production. Scaling up can be difficult with PV technologies, but Roscheisen was confident.

“There are manufacturability issues with CIGS but you wouldn’t hit a million cells a month unless you have worked out these,” he said. “This is why our manufacturing people have considered going from 0 output to 1 megawatt a month in output as more challenging than scaling from 1 megawatt to 100 megawatts or more.”

See Also:

Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We’re Talking Gigawatts
How to Make a Solar Cell With Donuts and Tea
The Top 10 Utilities for Solar Power
Utilities Jumping Into the Solar Game
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: solar Post Comment |
Comments (21)

Posted by: yafree2hoo | 09/9/09 | 6:32 pm

I hope this actually works, proving, yet again, that capitalizm actually DOES work! Innovation has yet to occur via government mandate or fiat. All of mankind’s progress have been gained through the seeking of profit. The politically correct socialist ninnies running America can gripe and bitch and moan all they want about the evils of the free market system, but they would still be living in the stone age without the rewards of profit!

Posted by: eliatic | 09/9/09 | 8:01 pm
“It’s big talk for a company that hasn’t really entered commercial production…”

But it will, REAL SOON NOW.

Posted by: billsoxs | 09/9/09 | 8:04 pm
Damn - it is a roll to roll process!

Posted by: GoldenSunCity | 09/9/09 | 8:09 pm
..These solar power are real super hot to conduct heat to boil the oil/water or atoms cells to make current build up, as long as the sun is up and Sun light wave is temp between 70F and 90F on the panel..They still need to build the technologies to cost down how to run the power after the Sun is went down another 10hrs or more and during the cloudy days..I have trying to make the solar power with rotating panels..It is really hot, it can burn the human flesh in red hot in 2 min and temp is as high as 2000F..
..Yesterday, the movie star from Burbank’s, is talking about his house was build with all green technologies..His house was near the airport and he has sound proof house and all those recycle stuff..

Posted by: Bruckley | 09/9/09 | 8:28 pm
Best of luck to this company. Innovation FTW.

Posted by: Shonda | 09/9/09 | 8:42 pm
So… Google is backing Nanosolar and Microsoft is backing Solaryn? Who is Wired going to back?

Posted by: sethdayal | 09/9/09 | 10:25 pm
Here is what happens to the dollar a watt solar cell when it goes industrial.

First Solar just announced plans for a state of the art 2 gigawatt facility destroying forever 26 sq miles of Chinese desert (who cares in China anyway) which they claim would cost $6 billion to build in the US if even possible with the regulatory difficulties. This farm would produce 2500 kwh per annum per collector peak watt at a 25% load factor (ie nighttime, clouds, winter etc). First Solar’s claim of $1000 a Kilowatt for the cells, becomes $3000 a kilowatt in a field collector farm, becomes $12000 a kilowatt when the load factor is added in. Absolutely no way in sight to economically store the power for nighttime, clouds, winter.

Westinghouse research claims with a long detailed study that with mass production techniques and political action for a one time nationwide regulatory approval of a standard design plant, they can build nuclear for $1000 a kilowatt or less than 2 cents a kilowatt hour. They’ve put their money on the table with a $1200 a kilowatt $5.5 billion nuke sale to China

Except for political reasons and special uses solar is just not a viable option until some from of reasonably priced storage can be developed. Mass produced nuclear power is much less expensive than both the solar and the projected costs of the storage.

We are within a couple of years of climate disaster, we need to start building in gigawatt a day quantities and very soon. Nuclear is our only option.

Posted by: Shonda | 09/10/09 | 12:13 am
Sethdayal? See linked article “Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We’re Talking Gigawatts” from 2/2009.

Posted by: quilner | 09/10/09 | 12:28 am
Some questions about Nanosolar’s $1-per-watt claim:

What happens at night?

What happens when its cloudy?

What happens during the winter-time?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 per watt investment guarantee a consistent 24/7/365 source of electricity?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost of installing transmission lines?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost laying cement for a power plant, assembling the cells into solar panels, installing the panels, and commissioning the power plant?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost of building base-load generating capacity to provide electricity for when the sun doesn’t shine?

Installing electrical transmission lines costs about $1 million per mile. Most PV power plants are located far away from demand centers.

This sounds like vaporware.

Posted by: bystander | 09/10/09 | 12:36 am
and we would still have clean water and air without the rewards of profit.
thanks auto industry, oil industry, big construction. now we have suburbs, everyone driving everywhere, pavement all over the place, crappy rail service, etc… somethings require investment beyond the desire for a short term profit.
hey “yafree2hoo” why do you think we want to discuss the virtues/failings of abstract economic non-systems? will you call me an evil socialist if i cry foul and tell you to get a life and pull your head out of your paranoid obsessed ass and let us get back to topic? i could use this juncture to discuss the profit motive involved in the auto-oil-roadbuilding triangle and the price our environment, society/culture, and economy has paid for it… but i digress…
anyway- back to the TOPIC you weasel, i’ve been watching NanoSolar for awhile. their website has not historically had much information about products, applications, specs, etc… mostly about how everyone believes in them. they seem to be getting great PR considering they have yet to bring a product to the public market shy of NDA’s or whatever lid they have on this technology… i will be happy to see it in action, but i remain skeptical and hopeful. i imagine there are other parallel technology breakthroughs awaiting us in the field of solar energy, as the writing is on the wall regarding alternative energy and the rapid scale up it will need to perform as we try to cut the oil addiction…

Posted by: criscross | 09/10/09 | 1:50 am
“Nuclear is our only option.”

does this statement consider total cost of nuclear waste etc.?
the health risk assosiated with all nuclear technology
and pls dont answer “its save”
Harrisburg, Tschernobyl should still ring a bell with some folks

just that the storage technology does not exist yet should not leave mankind on the wrong track for 2 or 3 more generations

about 60 years ago there was a perfect chance to develop the world towards a more human environment
the chance repeats itself regularly
but still the run for profit - the way we see it now i call it greed - stopps us from talkingt the next step

Posted by: rfrancis1980 | 09/10/09 | 2:37 am
Contrary to what is said in this article, silicon solar cells are not easy to make.

Silicon dioxide is one of the most plentiful resources on earth but it is far more expensive than regular glass, lexan, or acrylic because of the difficulty in forming it due to it having such a high melting temperature.

The raw materials in thin film solar cells on the other hand are rare and very expensive but since not much is needed and they can be inkjet printed onto a substrate they could be cheaper.

Personally I think we would be better off figuring out how to make silicon dioxide with less energy, heat, and in greater amounts. Sand is plentiful.

Posted by: rfrancis1980 | 09/10/09 | 3:10 am
I’m talking out of my ass, my post referred to silicon dioxide. Silicon solar cells don’t use silicon dioxide, out of luck I was half right, crystalline silicon is used and it is energy and heat intensive to work with.

In the past I was looking at dielectrics and pure silicon dioxide sheet has dielectric strength far higher than glass, lexan, or acrylic. It is also far more expensive.

Posted by: gul | 09/10/09 | 8:33 am
thanks..

Posted by: DreamTheEndless | 09/10/09 | 10:19 am
@yafree2hoo
“All of mankind’s progress have been gained through the seeking of profit.”

You’re an idiot. Have you ever heard of NASA? Or DARPA?

Or, for that matter, how about Sputnik? It came from a country that actually WAS socialist…

Posted by: millerSD | 09/10/09 | 11:12 am
I don’t think that solar power- from photovoltaic, Stirling engines, or whatever else is invented- will be able to provide all of the US’s or the world’s power. No single source should anyway. Right now we get some power from dirty sources like coal, some from future dirty sources like nuclear, and some from clean but environmentally harmful sources like hydro-electric. There is no such thing as a completely clean energy source because of the materials needed to get that energy to every household. ‘Top Gear’ pointed out that the carbon footprint of a BMW 325i is smaller than a Toyota Prius because of all the scarce materiels that go into making the batteries for a hybrid vehicle. Anyway, if a city gets most of its daytime power from solar, it can get the remainder from other renewable sources. Wind, hydro-electric, geothermal, you name it. If all of them are used as part of a broad approach to solving energy problems instead of seeing only one as a savior, then there should be a lot fewer problems during energy demand spikes and the like. There is no silver bullet.

Posted by: joenz | 09/10/09 | 11:16 am
In one paragraph the article says these solar cells are more cost effective than coal and nuclear, and in the next paragraph that they can’t compete with fossil fuels even WITH carbon taxes. I’m just left a bit confused I suppose.

Posted by: joenz | 09/10/09 | 11:36 am
To all of you people complaining that solar power only works when it’s light outside, the point of solar power is not to power 100% of our country. The highest use of power is during the times when it is light outside, so solar panals would be able to offset some of that peak demand. The great thing about coal power is that it’s power outputs can be controled VERY easily. So if it is cloudy, no problem. Just crank up the coal for the day. I ran some numbers too. Right now most americans pay about $0.12 per Kw/hr. Assuming that these solar panals are $1-per-watt including instalation (and not taking into account maintenance) it would take each solar panal 8333 hours to pay for itself. Assuming they work around 12 hours a day, it would only take about 2 years to pay for themself. To me, this actually seems reasonable; however, the maintenance costs do need to be included. If they could make solar panals that don’t have to be serviced for 10 years, I’d vote to set them up tomorrow.

Posted by: ndovu | 09/10/09 | 12:34 pm
yafree2hoo, can you believe it is the evil, whiny communist country of China that has made First Solar a huge amount of money? That must make your capitalistic, free-market eyeballs melt.

Posted by: samagon | 09/10/09 | 1:31 pm
“Nuclear is our only option.”

Only a sith would deal in absolutes…