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Nanosolar Ships First Commercial Panels

December 20, 2007   |   34 Comments

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San Jose, California [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Nanosolar Inc. has shipped its first set of commercial panels to Beck Energy. The panels will be installed at a plant located on a former landfill owned by one of the largest waste management companies in Eastern Germany.

"This is the first time that a solar electricity cell and panel has been designed entirely and specifically for utility-scale power generation. It will set the standard for green power generation at utility scale."

--Martin Roscheisen, CEO, Nanosolar
34 Reader Comments
Comment
1 of 34
December 20, 2007
I think cost is the most immediate critical factor for the proliferation of solar cells. I agree that efficiency is not a critical differentiation for Nanosolar right now, however, cell efficiency will be very important in the near future when other companies begin to bring thin film CIGS to market at competitive prices. Nanosolar will enjoy a king of the hill position until competitors enter the race. I love to use the phrase "build it and they will come." Lots of demand out there.
Comment
2 of 34
December 20, 2007
I thought I read that the efficiency was around 4% to 5%...

Maybe citizenRE should check into these guys. Maybe this was their big supply of cheap PV they were talking about that hasn't seem to come about ??

boB
Comment
3 of 34
December 20, 2007
The failure of the Energy Bill to include Renewables is not getting much press. I wrote an article and posted it here:
http://greenwombat.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/12/20/another-california-solar-power-plant-clears-hurdle/#comments
Comment
4 of 34
December 20, 2007
According to Solar Hope they are booked for 18 months of orders already. They also stressed the cells have 5x the current of other thin film, I'm curious to see the nameplate specs. I also presume net efficiency will be low, but at those prices I think we'd all agree it doesn't really matter.

http://solarhope.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/start-up-sells-solar-panels-at-lower-than-usual-cost/
Comment
5 of 34
December 20, 2007
It seems they stressed commercial and utility scale applications, maybe due to the efficiency. Regardless, no need for tax credits, rebates, etc. I don't think nanosolar will be able to manufacture this fast enough.
Comment
6 of 34
December 20, 2007
The highest world record CIGS cell was 19.5%, I think done by MiaSole. I would be surprised if it is higher or even close to this. The link is dated, mostly posted in 2005. In my humble experience, if a manufacturer does not state something as important as cell efficiency in a product release like this, I suspect they don't want to discuss it because it is low. I would love to be wrong on this.
Comment
7 of 34
December 20, 2007
The link below states that the CIGS cells are in the 15-20 efficiency range. I haven't picked through it, but it'll be hard to say for sure until the manufacturers post specs.

http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/06/09/nanosolar_miasole_stir_up_solar_cell_market.html
Comment
8 of 34
December 20, 2007
The question I have is how efficient are the $.99/Watt cells? Does anyone konw?
Comment
9 of 34
December 20, 2007
Indium is mined as a byproduct from Zinc refining, so the more Zinc that is mined and refined the more Indium will be in the market. The top 2 producers of Indium by country are China and Canada. All the other materials, Cr, Mo, AZO (ZnO:Al2O3), Ga, Cu, etc... for a standard CIGS stack (according to NREL)are fairly common with generally little price fluctuation. In my opinion, the only way the price can go up significantly is if the price of Indium goes through the roof (demand). Even then, so little material is needed to make a thin film that a huge fluctuation in Indium price should not greatly effect the total cost.
Comment
10 of 34
December 20, 2007
We supply a range of materials, including CIG PVD targets (not used by Nanosolar process). I am not familiar with the Nanosolar CIGS layer, but my guess is that they use nano particles in a proprietary and confidential process. Indium is the most expensive material and has been on a downward price trend. This may change in the future with tons of consumption. Indium, like Gallium is a very soft metal and difficult to powderize. They are likely the most costly to have made in a usable nano form. The largest consumption of Indium in the market today is in ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) manufacturing. ITO is used by flat panel and plasma screen manufacturers (as a transparent conductive layer), they use a lot of it... tons per month per company--mostly PVD.
Comment
11 of 34
December 20, 2007
I wonder about the CIGS supply line too--I wonder if anyone can speak to that. With prices like that, the credits would pull so much more weight.
Comment
12 of 34
December 20, 2007
The CEO claimed that at .99/watt the total system can be installed for $2.00. With the costs of the inverters, electrician, installation, mounting hardware etc. I think it would be closer to $2.75 which is still great and cost competitive with coal considering there is no fuel cost going forward. Not to mention the potential for carbon credits/REC's. Will there be a supply constraint of CIGS material going forward? Who supplies this? I would like to buy their stock.
Comment
13 of 34
December 20, 2007
From what I've read, they will be in full production of 430MW/YR this year.
Comment
14 of 34
December 20, 2007
If they really can hit $0.99 per Watt, you're absolutely right. I wonder how long the production ramp up is planned to take.
Comment
15 of 34
December 20, 2007
This is game changing, transformational.
Comment
16 of 34
December 21, 2007
Nanosolar has no incentive to saturate the market and drive prices down. They have every incentive to be low cost producer of a product in high demand. Sure they will ramp up production a make a lot of money for their private investors. They will come nowhere near satisfying demand (10^9 sqm) so prices for us consumers will not drop.

It may be another 20 years (after their patents expire) before you and I can walk into Home Depot and pay $0.99/watt for 100 square meters of PowerSheet.

Miasole and Solyndra use expensive vacuum deposition.

Global Solar roll prints. Their production costs may be low, but as you can see from their prices, they have no incentive to sell for less than market value.
Comment
17 of 34
December 21, 2007
Given the processing involved in producing nano-tech inks of the kind used, I suspect that the panels are only very slightly sensitive to raw material costs. Given the testing carried out, cell life should meet or exceed the design criteria of 25 years, and production costs should decline over time as increasing quantities are produced. The only significant increasing cost might well be copper cables, and metal frames to support the panels (global market prices are on an upward trend). This should be countered by further innovation and increasing cell efficiencies which will reduce the length of copper cable and the amount of support structure per watt installed.

Also to be considered are the advantages of solar power coinciding with peek electricity demand i.e. sunny summer days with a high air conditioning load. This increases the value of each Mwh relative to other generation.
Comment
18 of 34
December 21, 2007
From the wrench list:

These are light sensitive dyes, so they do not have the "staying power' of traditional silicon or thin film.

Todd
Comment
19 of 34
December 21, 2007
Cost per watt leads to cost per kwh. At stated prices, a nanosolar installation would have a payback of less than 3 years in areas where electricity is currently over .10/kwh. This is without rebates, tax credits or REC's. Most panels are warranted for 25 years at .5% degradation. You might have to swap out the inverters in year 10 or so. The game has changed. Utilities should get on board rather than resist. The ingenuity of man never ceases to amaze me.
Comment
20 of 34
December 21, 2007
The cell efficiency OR cost per watt argument is not needed. What we must look at is the total installed cost per kWh delivered. When Feed in tariffs are the norm, this is how solar will be measured-How much can I make for each dollar invested- if it costs 25% of traditional modules,but I need 4 times as much to produce the equivalent revenue there is no advantage.
Comment
21 of 34
December 21, 2007
There's a company in Prnceton, NJ called EPV that has a thin CIGS solar panel, does anyone have info on this product?
Comment
22 of 34
December 21, 2007
Nanosolar has competition, MiaSole, Solyndra, Global Solar, and others. There are a number of companies working on CIGS based solar cells with as many approaches. Now that Nanosolar has apparently proven a production model, there will be a great deal of pressure on the other thin film solar companies to bring their wares to market. There is nothing like healthy competition to spur the market. Like most things in business, it's a matter of money. With a good idea and $100 million, production build out should be relatively fast (compared to the 5 years of development).
Comment
23 of 34
December 21, 2007
From what I can tell, Nanosolar has 13 patents that were filed between 2002-2005.(US patent office - http://www.uspto.gov) A typical patent has a 20 year life from the date they are filed. This may appear to be counterintuitive to competition but it is a necessary law which allows companies to make a $100 million investment in a new technology. I can assure you, if nanosolar continues to make a profit from these modules and they are at grid-parity, they have all the incentives they need to ramp up production as quickly as possible.
Comment
24 of 34
December 21, 2007
Nanosolar is not a public company. Does anyone know when their Intellectual Property rights expire? Without competition, what is their incentive to grow very fast and make tons of product? Sorry to sound impatient, but the world needs roughly 260 billion square meters of these collectors within 26 years to replace fossil fuels. Their factory only makes 4 million square meters per year. To manufacturer 1 billion square meters per year will take 125 such factories each turning out 8 million square meters per year. Can one company do this? I hope they can, and maybe I should be offering to help. I am just asking the question: without competion, what is their incentive?
Comment
25 of 34
December 21, 2007
Could this be the tipping point? loads of investment and massive ramp up of manufacturing just like wind energy ten or so years ago??
Comment
26 of 34
December 21, 2007
Is Nanosolar publicly traded?
Comment
27 of 34
December 22, 2007
Stuart

Is Nanosolar cells quoted here CIGS cells?
Comment
28 of 34
December 27, 2007
I don't see how the placement of nano particles could cost less than roll to roll vacuum deposition. It is inevitably a race to the lowest cost production, dependant on raw materials. I believe it is less expensive (and cleaner) to manufacture solid PVD targets than to produce nano particles from raw materials. For example, I got a quote for CuInGa, it was $1500 per lb. for 5-20 micron size. I don't know what size Nanosolar uses, but getting it down to nano size will be quite a bit more. The same raw materials are less than $300 per lb. Then there are the costs associated with containing nano particles safely for materials such as selenium...
Comment
29 of 34
December 27, 2007
No one knows for sure what Nanosolar's production costs really are (except Nanosolar of course) or cell efficiency for that matter. Companies like MiaSole and Solyndra are using vacuum deposition, a proven low cost manufacturing process with roll to roll coaters (discussed publicly by Dave Pierce, former CEO). Roll to Roll coating has been perfected by the glass coating industry and proven to be the least costly way to coat substraights.
Comment
30 of 34
December 30, 2007
Miasole is laying off employees. It appears their vacuum deposition process (sputtering) has yield consistency problems that were predicted by some critics. I hope they can fix their problems and not fail as a company.

In comparison, Nanosolar's nano structures self assemble as the ink dries. If they make them the same way Innovalight does, it is as simple as dissolving the the right proportion of ingredients in an appropriate solvent.
Comment
31 of 34
December 31, 2007
In my humble opinion, when the management of a company changes so does the company. It is hard to speculate the actual reason for the headcount reduction, or for that matter where and why the reductions were made. MiaSole is just one company in pursuit of CIGS cell production. I was not aware of critics predicting consistency problems and causes. Please share if you can.

Assuming it is not a problem in the end, it still boils down to the cost of materials and process. Nanosolar's technology has to be more complicated than simply dissolving the right ingredients in the appropriate solvent, otherwise it would have been done in less than 5 years of development? It seems to me that on a Kg to Kg basis it is less expensive for roll to roll PVD.
Comment
32 of 34
January 4, 2008
<p>The question I have is not the price or the efficiency:</p><p>&nbsp;What is the panel W/sf!!!!!!!!!!</p>
Comment
33 of 34
January 17, 2008
&nbsp; With regard to the &quot;should have been done in less than 5 yrsd of development&quot; comment, lab quantity and *production* quantity/consistency, are very different animals. In production quantity, you are talking hundreds of sq, meters, per unit of time. Lab is usually sq. cm's/unit of time, and doesn't have production scale problems. Things like flow/distribution/desposition/etc. all are affected.
Comment
34 of 34
April 4, 2008
Can someone tell me if there has ever been any independant testing of the naosolar product by a qualified test lab? The last time I looked Nanosolar did not even have data sheets with IV curves on their website.
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