The Business of Solar PV Enters the Winter of Our Discontent
When I read articles like this one on 1366 Technologies that my colleague Gary Tulie just sent, I’m reminded of two businesses I’m glad I’m not in:
• Manufacturing solar PV. This stuff is so advanced, and it’s changing so quickly that I would be terrified to make an investment in any one technology and the capital equipment to support it. Gary notes: High performance wafers at around 20% efficiency at less than half the cost of current wafers. Overall. I would estimate around 9 cents a watt saving on the wafer, rising to around 12 cents a watt due to higher efficiency (more watts per area of glass).
• Manufacturing anything else in the renewable energy space. This may sound heretical, but if the cost per Watt of solar is falling like a stone (as illustrated in the article), I would find it hard to be confident that anything in this space can maintain a competitive advantage for very long.
Well, that’s the bad news. Is there any good news? Of course. The entire population of Earth stands to gain from the incredible pace at which the development of renewable energy continues to cook along here.
Craig,
I suggest you to read about: carbon nano fiber counter electrodes for low dye-sensitized solar cells ! You ain’t seen nothing yet!
Thanks. Here’s one: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775313018193. Wow, that’s some heavy-duty science there. I’ll need to bone up on this before I can claim to understand it.