We Phoenicians, who live in one of the best solar sites in the world, have been anxiously awaiting a solar electric technology that makes economic sense. I have a couple thousand square feet of nice, flat room that is just begging to get be off the grid. Already, solar is economic for individuals in Phoenix, but only if you are willing to soak American taxpayers and your neighbors for 85% of the costs. It would be nice if it were, you know, actually economic and not just subsidy bait for tens of thousands of dollars. I have dug into many analyses that claim that solar has a 5-7 year payback, but never seen one that achieved these returns without substantial subsidies and rebates (beware the term "energy payback" which is not the same thing as investment payback (pdf))
For a while I have said that I thought traditional silicon/germanium IC-like wafer processes for making solar cells was just never going to get there, and that some other technology was necessary. This might be one such example:
JA Solar, one of the big players in the solar industry, is working with Innovalight to commercialize the latter's method for making silicon-ink-based, high-efficiency solar cells, the companies said this week.
... The solar cells are created by pouring an ink solution incorporated with silicon nanoparticles and then decanting the excess liquid to leave behind a crystalline silicon structure.
At the time of the 2007 announcement, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Innovalight claimed its method not only resulted in solar cells that were cheaper to produce by as much as half, but that the crystalline structure resulting from the process made its cells more efficient at converting electricity.
Those claims now appear to be validated.
On Tuesday, Innovalight announced that an independent study of its method by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Germany confirmed that its silicon ink-based cells "demonstrated a record 18 percent conversion of efficiency."
The 18% conversion efficiency is close to a record for thin films, but must be the "record" for production models, since higher conversions have been achieved in the lab. 18% is very good for a production device, particularly if it is cheaper to manufacture than current cells.