Thin film technology can print solar panels on aluminum foil boards

The technology for printing low-cost solar panels on aluminum foil plates has recently appeared, which will become a milestone in the solar energy industry.

Nano's key to solar technology is copper, indium, gallium, and selenide interlayers, which are as thin as one-hundredth of the silicon used in the solar photovoltaic market today. The great potential of this technology has impressed Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. From the early days of technology development, the two became angel investors in the project.

Two statements made the first appearance of Nano Solar: The company has $4 billion in contracts, and their solar panels cost $1 per watt. This price is competitive with the fossil fuel prices that are now common in the world.

In particular, this technology can avoid the difficulties when building huge power plants such as thermal power plants and nuclear power plants. Establishing many smaller solar power stations in neighboring cities is another option for people.

“Solar panels like ours have a very high return on investment and can be arbitrarily chosen from 2 MW to 20 MW. If electricity usage rises sharply, such municipal power plants can be built within six months and directly Transmission to the local grid, without the need for large-scale transmission grid investment. "Solar company CEO Martin Rochesterson wrote to the "connection" website in an email. "The thermal power and nuclear power have no way to match the return on investment and rapid production."

Because this solar technology is considered as a true "breakthrough," since the early 1980s, thin-film solar technology has become a major area of ​​concern for US alternative energy research. Silicon batteries are easy to produce, reliable, and highly efficient, but some researchers believe that silicon batteries also have inherent flaws. Production of silicon cells uses more silicon than thin-film solar cells. And even if it can achieve a photoelectric conversion rate of 40%, its efficiency is much lower than fossil fuels.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has been working on thin film solar energy in the 1990s, but it seems that there is no technology that can work outside the laboratory. It turns out that it is very difficult to produce thin film solar cells.

In 2005, the first solar company used a cadmium telluride thin-film battery to enter the solar market. Their production costs dropped rapidly and they also got billions of dollars in contracts. Just two days ago, they also signed a 2 billion watt contract with the Chinese government. Investors now believe that the market value of the first solar company is even higher than the total of American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and Federal Aviation. First Solar has become the biggest obstacle and goal for Nano Solar.

The biggest difference between NanoSolar and other companies is that they have special technology for bonding semiconductors to metal foils. Most companies need to perform various operations in a vacuum environment, and Nano Solar can directly print solar cells on metal foil.

“The difference between them and other companies is that they have invented a technology that does not require a vacuum to produce solar panels,” said MiG Contea, a thin-film solar energy researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "It seems ordinary to say it, and I want to point out that this kind of wet chemical technology can save a lot of money for investment in fixed equipment."

This type of solar cell has a large amount of aluminum foil on the substrate, which is the company's advantages in raw materials and production.

Earlier this year, First Solar announced that they began producing solar cells that cost less than $1 per watt. Nano Solar said that their prices could be lower. Nano also targeted the first solar companies in a recent white paper and claimed that their “system balancing costs” (all other raw materials except the solar panels themselves) are lower.

For a company that has not yet invested in commercial production, it seems to be talking big, but Nano has already invested 500 million U.S. dollars in venture capital and some cutting-edge technologies. In addition to the contracts they have won, they also announced that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory tests confirmed that Nano's battery is the most efficient printed solar cell with a conversion rate of 16.4%.

Even if the competition among solar companies is heating up, there is still a lot of market space in the expanding renewable energy market. Market competition can promote technological progress and lower production costs, which are good news for solar energy advocates. After reducing the main cost of solar energy production in the early 1990s, the average cost of solar modules has not been significantly reduced.

If companies like First Solar and Nano Solar continue to grow, they will reduce the average price of solar energy to compete with fossil fuel tanks. First Solar will produce 1 billion watts of solar panels this year. Nano's production is relatively small. They have equipment that can produce 640 megawatts of panels, and the output will also gradually increase on the basis of the current one megawatt per month. The use of pervaporation to expand production may encounter some difficulties, but Rothschild is confident.

"There are many things to put into production. Unless you solve all the problems, it would be impossible to produce one million batteries per month." He said, "This is also why our production staff think that the process from 0 to 1 megawatt is better than from 1 to 1 megawatt. The megawatt-to-megawatt expansion challenge is even greater."