NANOSOLAR

RAHUL JAIN 1 and YOGESH SINGHAL2

1

Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, FET Agra College Agra 2 B.Tech Student, FET Agra College, Agra

Nanosolar has developed a suite of in-house capabilities for creating nanostructured components based on various patented and patent-pending techniques. It uses nanostructured components as the basis for creating printable semiconductors, printable transparent electrodes, novel forms of advanced nanocomposite solar-cell design and powerful new forms of barrier film. These solar cells successfully blend the needs for efficiency, low cost, and longevity and will be easy to install due to their flexibility and light weight. Estimates by Nanosolar of the cost of these cells fall roughly between 1/10th and 1/5th the industry standard per kilowat. __________________________________________________________________________ _ INTRODUCTION Nanosolar is a developer of solar power technology. Based in San Jose, CA, Nanosolar has developed and commercialized a lowcost printable solar cell manufacturing process. The company started selling panels mid-December 2007, and plans to sell them at around $1 per watt. When first announced that was just one fifth the price of the silicon cells, but in 2010 brand name silicon cells sell from around $1.70 reducing Nanosolar's cost advantage significantly. 1.0 MANUFACTURING Nanosolar was started in 2002 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. The company has received financing from a number of technology investors including Capital, Mohr, and Nanosolar received the largest amount in a round of Venture technology funding amongst United States companies during Q2 2006, with 100 million USD of new funding secured. It also received the largest amount of financing of any private company in 2008 (USD 300 million). Nanosolar planned to build a large production facility in San Jose and in Germany, with an annual capacity of 430 megawatts. Nanosolar is also building a panel manufacturing plant in Luckenwalde (Berlin). Several German energy and venture capital companies have heavily invested in this company as a consequence of the favorable economics for solar energy in Germany due to government subsidies. On December 12, 2007 the company announced that it had started solar cell production in its San Jose factory, with its German facility slated to go into operation in the 1st quarter of 2008. The company said in 2006 that the San Jose factory, when fully built, would have the capacity to produce 430 megawatts of cells each year. 2.0 TECHNOLOGY The company uses copper indium gallium dieselinewhich achieves up to 19.9% efficiency in laboratory samples to build their film solar cells. The company's technology gained early industry recognition with the presentation of a Small Times Magazine award at a leading nanotech business

event in 2005. Nanosolar's solar cells have been verified by NREL to be as efficient as 14.6% in 2006 and 15.3% in 2009. Technical details of Nanosolar's new manufacturing techniques have been disclosed in patent applications. Some information about their process has become available in a Scientific American article (in German). These details involve a semiconductor ink that it claims will enable it to produce solar cells with a basic printing process, rather than using slow and expensive high-vacuum based thin-film deposition processes. The ink is deposited on a flexible substrate (the paper), and then Nan components in the ink align themselves properly via molecular self-assembly. In September 2009, Nanosolar announced the launch of production at a rate of 640 MW annually; however, ramp-up to volume production after the announcement took an additional six months, limiting actual production in 2009 to an estimated 4 MW, and as of August 2010 the plant is still ramping up toward its announced capacity. Since the hiring of new CEO Geoff Tate, the company has declined to discuss its actual manufacturing capacity, but has said that its target for 2010 is to ship panels for "several ... megawatt-size projects" and "[build] panels for projects that have been identified that can help build the case for an operating history and bank ability in 2011. Efficiencies for current production panels are said to be 8-9%, with plans to submit panels with 10-11% efficiency for IEC certification in the fall of 2010. Nanosolar has developed a suite of inhouse capabilities for creating nanostructure components based on various patented and patentpending techniques. It

uses nanostructure components as the basis for creating printable semiconductors, printable transparent electrodes, novel forms of advanced Nan composite solar-cell design and powerful new forms of barrier films. According to the company, "leveraging recent science advances in nanostructure materials; Nanosolar has developed a proprietary ink that makes it possible to simply print the semiconductor of a highperformance solar cell. This ink is based on Nanosolar developing various proprietary forms of Nan particles and associated organic dispersion chemistry and processing techniques suitable for delivering a semiconductor of high electronic quality. Two advantages over earlier technologies are that a printing process is quick and also makes it easy to deposit a uniform layer of the ink, resulting in a layer with the correct ratio of elements everywhere on the substrate. Also, the ink is printed only where needed, so there is less waste of material. Last, the substrate material on which the ink is printed is much more conductive and less expensive than the stainless steel substrates that are often used in thin-film solar panels. These solar cells successfully blend the needs for efficiency, low cost, and longevity and will be easy to install due to their flexibility and light weight. Estimates by Nanosolar of the cost of these cells fall roughly between 1and10th and 1/5th the industry standard per kilowatt. The company implies that their solar cells can last more than 25 years by saying they "achieve durability compatible with our 25-year warranty. They recently commissioned a study by Black and Vetch that finds their

25-year warranty to be compatible with their module design. 3.0 OTHER THIN FILM CIGS (copper indium gallium dieseline) Global Solar said that its CIGS cells from its factory had reached an average efficiency of 10 percent HelioVolt Corp. said it had produced CIGS cells with efficiency as high as 12.2 percent on a pilot line Group Sat Solar has noted that it can produce CIGS cells with a 12.5 percent and an average efficiency of 10 percent in full production efficiency. Ascent Solar said that its CIGS cells from its factory had reached an average efficiency of 19 percent Solyndra Miasol Ascent Solar IBM invented and is developing a hydrazine-based process that produces ~12% CIS Daystar Technologies, Inc. said that its CIGS cells from its factory had reached an average efficiency of 14 percent. REFERENCES 1. Nanosolar, Inc Yahoo Finance 2. Vidal, John (December 29, 2007). "Solar energy 'revolution' brings green power closer". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-12-31. 3. Mark off, John (2007-1218). "Nanosolar". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-12-31. 4. "Nanosolar". ubergizmo. Retrieved 2007-12-31.

5. "Venture Capital Funding". Investor's Business Daily. 2006-07-24. 6. "Nanosolar Selects Manufacturing Sites". 2006-1212.