Points of Interest | Green Energy News

May 9, 2004 – Vol.9 No.7

POINTS OF INTEREST.

A weekly collection of websites worth visiting.

Here’s a story that should give supporters of solar energy some hope, yet not without some dismay and irritation.

A student at nearby school somehow managed to find this editor’s phone number. Calling late one afternoon she asked if I knew where locally to buy one single solar cell for a class project. The project was to build a solar powered motor with a battery back-up. She said she knew how to wire the project and the battery and motor were no problem to find. However she couldn’t find any local supplier or retailer of solar cells.

I said, did you try BP Solar which is headquartered a few miles from her community? She said yes, but the person she talked to was only interested in selling her a whole panel.

What?!

How shameful of them not to recognize the opportunity to gain another life-long supporter of solar power!

One cell couldn’t have been too difficult to pop in the mail for her.

How can they be so blind?

So I told her to try GE Solar (formerly Astropower), also not too far away. (They note in their website that they sell individual cells.) I told her my guess is that they would probably get one to her for free if she mentioned that she was student.

(I don’t know if the student ever called GE, but in a later conversation with the company a representative confirmed that they would have sent one to the student free of charge.)

Since then this editor found a company called Plastecs which will sell single cells, as well as host of other solar, fiber optic, battery and solar school project supplies. This company will even cut solar cells to sizes to fit specific projects - student projects or otherwise.

Visit GE Solar at http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/solar/en/index.htm and Plastecs at http://www.plastecs.com/ .