Sunday, August 24, 2008

SOLAR vs. COAL

First Solar : Quest for the $1 Watt
By Richard Stevenson
First Published August 2008




PHOTO: Gehrlicher Solar
Before First Solar's manufacturing innovations, cadmium-telluride photovoltaic cells were the size of postage stamps; now the company makes them as big as window panes





PHOTO: juwi
First Solar's current production mostly goes into solar farms, like this 40-megawatt facility in Brandis, Germany.






Photo: Sven Kaestner/AP Photo; diagram: emily cooper
A rare look inside a First Solar plant—here, in Frankfurt/Oder, eastern Germany—gives away none of the company’s secrets, which involve manufacturing very large panels. The cell structure itself is known [see diagram below]; as in all thin-film designs, the active layers are built on an inert glass wafer.










Read to whole story here

1 comment:

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