First Solar Says it Delivers $1 Per Watt
First Solar, one of the largest manufacturers of photovoltaic panels in the United States, announced this week that its latest products can deliver electricity at a cost of $1 per watt. If the company's claims pan out, that would mean solar energy has reached so-called "grid parity," meaning it can match the costs of electricity made by burning coal. Coal-fired electrical plants historically have been the most polluting but least expensive way to make electricity.
Writing in gizmag.com, reporter Paul Evans, says that breaking the $1 per watt barrier represents an important advance for alternative energy.
"First Solar claims to have the lowest manufacturing cost per watt in the industry with the ability to make solar cells at 98 cents per watt, one third of the price of comparable standard silicon panels," Evans writes. "The efficiency is in part due to a low cycle time — 2.5 hours from sheet of glass to solar module — about a tenth of the time it takes for silicon equivalents."
First Solar made this advance with "thin film cadmium telluride solar panels [that] have an active element just a hundredth the thickness of silicon used in conventional solar panels built on a glass substrate," according to the company. Evans says that "the process and machinery used is so secret that visitors to the company's 500 megawatt production facility are barred from getting an up close look at the production line."
Meeting grid parity with a product that is ready for market and being manufactured is an important milestone for solar science.
Photo courtesy of First Solar.
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