All About Solar | Green Energy News

April 17, 2005 – Vol.10 No.4

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

SunPower, though only a recent name in solar photovoltaics, is moving along nicely with new orders and more manufacturing capacity.

The company has announced it has signed a five-year agreement with SOLON AG to supply $300 million worth of solar cells to that company.

SOLON is a German solar module manufacturer that is now offering modular 9 -10 kilowatt electric generation systems for integration into multi-megawatt solar power plants. The systems, known as SOLON-Mover have built-in tracking capabilities to allow modules to follow the Sun throughout the day.

To meet its growing order book, SunPower has also announced it will increase its annual solar cell manufacturing capacity by 25 megawatts by 2006. The company will expand its production capacity in the Philippines to do so. When complete, SunPower will have a capacity of 75 megawatts per year.

The company makes one product: the A-300 cell that has a solar-to-electric conversion efficiency rate of 21.5 percent, an industry best. Visit SunPower at http://www.sunpowercorp.com/ and SOLON at http://www.solonmover.com/ .

If statements hold true, solar-to-electric conversion of 21.5 percent may seem small in the future. RoseStreet Labs has announced it will begin commercialization of a solar cell that captures the full spectrum of solar light for a conversion efficiency exceeding 55 percent.

The technology, developed jointly by Cornell University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a thin film single material system. RoseStreet Labs, a supplier of products and services for wireless infrastructure, will use its semiconductor facility in Phoenix, Arizona to produce the photovoltaic product.

Licensing for the technology is through Cornell’s Center for Technology, Enterprise, and Commercialization (CCTEC). Visit RoseStreet at http://www.rosestreetlabs.com/ ,CCTEC at http://www.cctec.cornell.edu/