# Solar Panels at 1 dollar/watt!



## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Nanosolar has done it.They are claiming they can SELL it at .99 cents a watt,comparable to coal costs!.Here is a Popular Science article about it.

Its real folks,they are delivering them to Germany!
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Green Tech
Nanosolar Powersheet

The New Dawn of Solar


Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. Thatâs the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power thatâs ubiquitous because itâs cheap. The basic technology has been around for decades, but this year, Silicon Valleyâbased Nanosolar created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality.

The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. With backing from Googleâs founders and $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, Nanosolarâs first commercial cells rolled off the presses this year.

Cost has always been one of solarâs biggest problems. Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity (exacerbated currently by a global silicon shortage). Whatâs more, says Peter Harrop, chairman of electronics consulting firm IDTechEx, âit has to be put on glass, so itâs heavy, dangerous, expensive to ship and expensive to install because it has to be mounted.â And up to 70 percent of the silicon gets wasted in the manufacturing process. That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt.

Nanosolarâs cells use no silicon, and the companyâs manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. âYouâre talking about printing rolls of the stuffâprinting it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,â says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. âIt really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar.â

In San Jose, Nanosolar has built what will soon be the worldâs largest solar-panel manufacturing facility. CEO Martin Roscheisen claims that once full production starts early next year, it will create 430 megawattsâ worth of solar cells a yearâmore than the combined total of every other solar plant in the U.S. The first 100,000 cells will be shipped to Europe, where a consortium will be building a 1.4-megawatt power plant next year.

Right now, the biggest question for Nanosolar is not if its products can work, but rather if it can make enough of them. California, for instance, recently launched the Million Solar Roofs initiative, which will provide tax breaks and rebates to encourage the installation of 100,000 solar roofs per year, every year, for 10 consecutive years (the state currently has 30,000 solar roofs). The company is ready for the solar boom. âMost important,â Harrop says, âNanosolar is putting down factories instead of blathering to the press and doing endless experiments. These guys are getting on with it, and that is impressive.â nanosolar.com âMICHAEL MOYER


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Nanosolar is delivering panels at a production cost of 1 dollar per watt!
=============================================
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nanosolar, a privately held
solar energy company whose backers include Google
Inc's (GOOG.O) co-founders, on Tuesday said it has
started to sell what it calls "the world's lowest cost
solar panel."


*"We have begun shipping panels for freefield
deployment in Eastern Germany," *said Chief Executive
Martin Roscheisen in a statement on Nanosolar's Web
site. "The first megawatt of our panels will go into a
power plant installation there,"

The company, which got early stage financing from
Google Inc co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page,
uses a thin-film technology that requires only a
fraction of the amount of silicon needed in
conventional solar cells.

*Nanosolar's technique allows it to make panels
profitably for less than $1 per watt, it says.
*
Solar power and other renewable energies such as wind,
biomass, and geothermal comprise one of the
fastest-growing energy sectors.

(Reporting by Franklin Paul; Editing by Derek Caney)


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

This is great news!

I just visited an off the grid friend. His solar array was a lot smaller and cheaper than I had expected. It got me thinking that even I could do it.

I wish I had a few thousand shares of their stock.


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2007)

Maybe soon solar will get cheap enough that we can afford a few panels.

Maybe.


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## WisJim (Jan 14, 2004)

They claim to be making them at a production cost of $1 a watt, not selling them for that. Not clear at all what the actual price of them is, and now they are supposedly selling them only to customers using a million watts or so. May be a long time before they are available to homeowners and who knows what the price will be. The "production cost" is only a part of the "selling price".

But I am also hoping that they prove to have a long life and that they will be available at a reasonable price soon. I'll buy a kilowatt or so to try them out, if they get down to $2 a watt or so.


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Its certainly a step in the right direction.

Ive seen 2 different reports,1 a production cost of 99 cents,1 a selling cost of 99 cents and profitable.Currently the cheapest competitor is 3 dollars a watt production cost.So this is a breakthrough of many orders of magnitude.And its REAL.

They have a large commitment to Germany right now.Like many solar sellers,their production is already bought years in advance.FSLR is a prime example.

They are a private company,backed by 2 Google millionaires and a big stake of Googles push into renewable energy.Google money means SERIOUS support.

Of course I wouldnt sell them at less than world current market price,I would take maximum profits.If I was actually competing for market share,price would go down.

Fact remains,1 dollar/watt is a BIG deal.Its the Holy Grail price level.And the tech,brand new,nothing like it.

This is what we need,innovation,lower cost and actual production.Sure shows the naysayers we are going to do it,and are doing it.

Here is the pop sci link....couple simple slide shows there.Also a hybrid locomotive with an innovative battery tech.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html


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## mpillow (Jan 24, 2003)

Yahoo! (inapproriate right?)


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## Jerry in MN (Dec 2, 2007)

Mightybooboo, how would you define ONE order of magnitude?


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Jerry in MN said:


> Mightybooboo, how would you define ONE order of magnitude?


I wouldnt,I dont play trolling games.

You have any comments about the topic?


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## mpillow (Jan 24, 2003)

Lately I've seen 15 watt panels for $60 plus shipping(and on backorder)but I paid $80 and free shipping a few years back....from Northern tool.
1.8w battery maint. was $20, and a foldable 5w with different volt attach was $30 also free shipping.
State rebates help but in the fine print "your system must be installed and approved by licensed individual" ----there goes all the "profit"


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## WisJim (Jan 14, 2004)

I wish that there were some good articles available about this company and its products that weren't inaccurate or vague in details, like the Pop Science article, or written as public relations info by the manufacturer. When an article like the PopSci makes factual errors about other kinds of PV panels (such as the quote "it has to be put on glass" referring to conventional silicon PVs), it makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the information.

These PVs also use indium and gallium, which are also seeing an increase in demand due to the increased use of LEDs for lighting. Hope we don't find ourselves in a shortage of these materials just when a potentially promising new technology is taking off.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

I received another email Nanosolar "report".
Would post it here . . if I knew how.

Unfortunately I will not bet a nickle as to the time frame before I can get them to install.

Also a potential customer can say "Guess I'll wait till the buck price is here" . . . . . .Sir, that may be awhile.

But yes there's hope on the horizion.


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## idahodave (Jan 20, 2005)

There seems to be way too much hype.....

First shipments all go to an E Germany project, but you can buy one of the first cells on Ebay. 

Oh, but wait there's more, buy the cell now and they will hold it in escrow until next summer, after all we can't let the cat out of the bag too soon.

I did look around and found this:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journa...l;jsessionid=D9F9EE07051A358F158CBC451ACF38A6

It does shed some light on what's going on with nano and thin film tecnology


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

Thanks for the info and links Boo and good to see you drop in for a visit


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2007)

Ross said:


> Thanks for the info and links Boo and good to see you drop in for a visit


 I second that. I sure have missed BooBoo!


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

idahodave said:


> There seems to be way too much hype.....
> 
> First shipments all go to an E Germany project, but you can buy one of the first cells on Ebay.


This is 'hype' too from FSLR?

What is Nanosolar hyping? It isnt to raise revenue,they arent even a public company and have plenty of backing.Shoot,I wish I COULD invest in them,I have a couple stocks I would gladly exchange.

Why do you find it odd that their production is bought out? Is that the 'hype'?

So it is at First Solar too,they dont have any panels to sell to YOU either,and yet.....
======================================================


It's official. First Solar is the Google of solar companies.

The Phoenix, Ariz.-based maker of cadmium telluride solar cells and panels has soared past the $200 a share mark. It was up to $230 today and is currently trading at about $219.

Remarkably, First Solar had an initial public offering in the middle of November 2006. The stock went out at $20 a share, so effectively, it has gone up in value by 11 times in a little less than a year. Google went out at $85 a few years ago and is now above $700. The numbers are bigger, but the multiple isn't.

First Solar's stock is being driven by rapid growth in revenue and profit. In the third quarter, revenue came to $159 million, more than triple the $40.8 million for the same period the year before. Revenue for the second quarter came to $77.2 million, so revenue essentially doubled in three months.

Net income for the third quarter came to $46.0 million or $0.58 per share, compared to $4.3 million or $0.06 per share the year before.

Analysts expected revenues of $120 million and earnings per share of 19 cents this quarter. The financial results were announced yesterday. There is some speculation fever built into the stock price. The price-to-earnings ratio currently hovers around 287, fairly high, even by 1998 Internet bubble standards. But the company is making money.

Unlike silicon solar-cell makers or the armies of CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) manufacturers, First Solar extracts electricity from thin films of cadmium telluride (a semiconductor made from cadmium and tellurium) on glass.

Although they are not as efficient as silicon cells, cadmium tellurium cells are comparatively cheap to make and are fairly robust. They operate in a wide temperature range and in a variety of light conditions, including dawn and dusk. In other words, cadmium telluride is the Honda Civic of solar-panel material.

The company isn't facing a material shortage, like silicon manufacturers, and it is producing product, unlike the vast majority of CIGS companies.

First Solar said this week that it has signed a deal to supply investment firm Babcock & Brown with solar modules in a deal that will bring it $1 billion in revenue between 2008 and 2009. Overall, First Solar has contracts to install more than 3 gigawatts of power through 2012.

To meet demand for the project, the company's board has approved a fourth manufacturing plant in Malaysia. Two are under construction, and the company announced a third manufacturing plant in April. Each plant will have four manufacturing lines. When up and running, each plant will be capable of turning out 120 megawatts worth of solar panels a year, or 480 megawatts in total.

That will more than double the company's existing capacity. Right now, the company has plants in Germany and the United States that cumulatively can crank out 210 megawatts worth of panels.

The Walton family of the Wal-Mart fame funded the company from the beginning and still owns a large chunk of the stock. 
================================================

First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq:FSLR) announced today that it has entered into new long term module supply agreements with a subsidiary of international investment and funds and asset manager Babcock & Brown (Australia:BNB), and Ecostream Switzerland GmbH, a subsidiary of Econcern BV, which focuses on developing solutions for sustainable energy supply. The new agreements expand contracted module volume by a total of 557MW, allowing for additional sales of approximately $1 billion at an assumed exchange rate of $1.30/E1.00 over the period of 2008 to 2012. The agreements are structured on terms similar to First Solar's existing long term supply agreements.


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

So I ask,why is Nanosolar having a long term contract with a German Company ,or announcing that they are now delivering on that contract so disturbing?

I dont see any smoking guns here.


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## idahodave (Jan 20, 2005)

Your example of First Solar is in stark contrast with Nanosolar....Facts, filings, SEC requirements and a real product being shipped.

Nano is a private company, with no pesky SEC looking over their shoulder. All they need is a string of good press releases to keep investors at bay. Can they really make panels? If so, why not give some real information about them? Selling one panel on Ebay and not delivering it sure seems like they don't want anyone actually measuring it's performance and are trying to buy time. The ones they are shipping probably aren't going to be used for a long time, and there's no way to confirm construction and performance. The chief scientist left the company several months ago, wonder why? 

A number of red flags are up for Nano. Even First Solar had a P/E of 287, not the kind of company I'd usually invest in.


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

If Nano doesnt deliver,the venture capitalists lose.They have no recourse.You dont get guarantees when you invest in a start-up.
75 million is chickenfeed to Google,I doubt they are sweating it.

Maybe they dont want it reverse engineered? Then I see this....
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To commemorate the sale of its first product, Nanosolar said it would keep one solar panel for historical purposes, donate a second to the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose and auction a third on eBay.

As of Friday afternoon, $13,100 was the highest bid of 95 offers so far for "Nanosolar Utility Panel #2." The bidding started at 99 cents on Dec. 17. The sale ends Thursday. Proceeds will be donated to an unnamed charity.

The product description said the winning bidder must sign an agreement forbidding "any reverse engineering of the solar panel or its components," and says the panel will be held in escrow until June 1, 2009.

============================================
Sounds like a reasonable thought to me.

Why on EARTH they have it on Ebay,seems stupid to me.I can see where that might raise a flag,I will grant you that.That IS a well thought out idea you have on that.

Maybe they want press? They sure are getting it.


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Ive read their first tech didnt work.Could that be why he left? Or is he off to something else?Or he was a loser who wasnt producing?Or he is no longer needed now that the process is being brought to market? Who knows?

Here is their management team.Founder and co founder there from the beginning.

CEO Martin Roscheisen is a technology entrepreneur whose three previous technology companies reached a combined value of more than $1.2 billion; EVP Operations is Werner Dumanski who previously led IBM's $4.5 billion storage-disk manufacturing; CFO James McNicholas was Hitachi's top finance executive; and co-founder and VP Corporate Development Brian Sager, a biotech veteran who has advised more than 50 high growth companies.

Seems like a powerful management team to me,with respected and proven track records,not a shady group of fly by nights.

CIGS is real,and it apparently works from my research,do you have some that says it doesnt?
=================================================
From Wikipedia

Its main use is for photovoltaic cells (CIGS cells), in the form of polycrystalline thin films. Unlike the silicon cells based on p-n junction, the structure of CIGS is a complex heterojunction system. The best efficiency achieved as of December 2005 was 19.5%, which is by far the highest compared with those achieved by other thin film technologies such as Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) or amorphous silicon (a-Si).

=================================================
From Wikipedia....

The company uses Copper Indium Gallium Diselenideâwhich can achieve up to 19.5% efficiencyâto build their thin film solar cells. Technical details of Nanosolar's new manufacturing techniques are closely held by the company but some information of their process has become available in a Scientific American article (in German). [7] These details involve a semiconductor ink that it claims will enable it to produce solar cells with a basic printing process. In this process, the ink is deposited on a flexible substrate (the âpaperâ), and then nanocomponents in the ink align themselves properly via molecular self-assembly. Two advantages over earlier technologies is 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 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 1/10th and 1/5th [8] the industry standard per kilowatt.

The company implies that their solar cells can last more than 25 years by saying they "achieve a durability compatible with our 25-year warranty."[9]

=============================================

Guess we will wait and see......


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

I would imagine the investors (venture capitalists) would know if it was true or not if production had actually commenced.If it hadnt I would guess we would be hearing about it.Real soon.

So we wait and see,eh?


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

Still remains the problem of what to do with excess production. Last I heard utility companies are only required to 'buy it' at their cost of production, which is way less than what you pay per kwh.

Far as I know utility companies still haven't solved how to completely shut down a line to work on it when there would be multiple inputs into the line from individual solar systems. Last I heard solution was something like a trip-box at each site which, via signal, would disconnect solar input, then restart via another signal.

For a utility company maximum solar input is likely to be something like from 10AM to 4 PM, which are not peak demand hours.

Just playing with numbers. Say I invested in a 2kw system at $3.00 watt installed, for a $6,000 total investment. It reduces by electrical bill by half, which, for me, would average around $50 month. Payback would be 120 months, or ten years.

Can someone address the infrastructure which would be needed to make solar work on a widespread scale via numerous small producers, such as CA's 1M house roofs?


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Ken Scharabok said:


> Far as I know utility companies still haven't solved how to completely shut down a line to work on it when there would be multiple inputs into the line from individual solar systems.


Your inverter is synchronized to the power in the power companies line.When their power goes down your inverter loses that synch and it disconnects from the grid.I believe thats how it works.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Hi Booboo,

Did the auction get reinstated?

http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/2007/12/21/ebay-cancels-our-panel-2-auction-due-to-charitable-angle/

The problem with alt energy hookups comes from when you have several in one area. They can end up powering each other when grid power goes down. That keeps them from disconnecting like they are supposed too and makes a real dangerous situation for the workers.

Good to see you back.



Hi Ken,

How much the power companies have to pay is based on your states net metering law. Some don't pay anything and get any excess power granted to them for free.

Actually solar power does line up with peak demand for most areas. Think all commercial and industry open from 8 to 5 with air conditioning going. Daytime in winter is still even higher usage the night.

The infrastructure would be the same for either. Its still needed to power everything when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. The only time the grid could have be less is when you have a stand alone system.


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

wy_white_wolf said:


> Hi Booboo,
> 
> Did the auction get reinstated?


Yeah,that auction really did seem like a stupid idea.Spidey sense is tingling IdahoDave


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

A CEO interview,addresses the scientist question BTW
===========================================
All ten questions here,worth reading
http://earth2tech.com/2007/07/30/10-questions-for-nanosolar-ceo-martin-roscheisen/

Martin Roscheisen, CEO of thin film solar company Nanosolar, founded the startup five years ago when solar was nowhere near the hot topic it is today. He managed to fund the company with at least $100 million from venture firms like Benchmark Capital and Mohr Davidow and individual investors like Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and entrepreneur Jeff Skoll.

The Austrian citizen born in Munich is also a long time Internet entrepreneur who already founded three startups with a combined value of more than $1.2 billion. In an email interview he answers 10 questions for us:

Q). You were one of the first Valley entrepreneurs to focus seriously on green tech - If you had to start a clean tech company in 2007, and not 2002, what would you do differently?

A). I know very little about anything in greentech other than solar. If I had to start a solar company in 2007, I would take a pass. This industry is in a very different stage now. This is going to be like the DRAM business much more quickly than many may realize. (WOW,wouldnt that be something?-BooBoo)I have a hard time seeing how anyone can be successful in solar who isnât truly in volume in 2008 with a very mature, very cost-efficient technology.


Q). In the thin film industry there are several players like Miasole or SoloPower that are looking to build the next CIGS thin film technology. What will make the difference in which technologies win the deals?

A).An IEC-certified panel product available in near-term 100MW volume at a fully-loaded cost point in the sixties [cents/Watt] or less so that one can profitably sell at a $.99/Watt wholesale price point. Thereâs no chance a process technology based on a high-vacuum deposition technique is going to make this. The window of opportunity for that more conventional approach to CIGS existed perhaps two years ago in the form of the chance of getting to market earlier with such more incremental technology.

But by now, the industry has moved on generally and Nanosolar is there with far better third-generation process technology that took a $150-million deep-dive into very science-intense research and development to develop, and that momentum gap that will continue to broaden fast.


Q). A report from the Information Network said that delays in thin film have âsoured venture capital firms and other equity investors who had hoped for faster returns on investments.â Thoughts?

A). I donât know about âsouringâ but if anyone expected a materials based business to deliver YouTube type investment IRRs, they might have put their hopes in the wrong place. On the other hand, a company like Nanosolar has a credible path towards shipping $10 billion worth of high-ops-margin product to strong commercial customers with a sales model that could not be simpler and more predictable; and at that point the company would perhaps still only have a one-digit market penetration percentage. 

Q). Does the company need to raise any more money?

A). We are fully funded for reaching profitability. We may choose to raise additional capital for accelerating our capacity expansion.

Q). An analyst told me that thin film solar companies in the U.S. are worried about price competition with Chinese solar firms. . . .is that true and something Nanosolar thinks about competitively?

A). If I ran a company based on solar thin films deposited in high-vacuum chambers, Iâd worry too. Because [Chinese market leader] Suntech achieves better capital efficiency today with conventional silicon-wafer based solar factories than a typical thin-film vacuum line. 


Q). The companyâs chief scientist Chris Eberspacher joined Applied Materials and some bloggers were wondering if the company is losing its core startup talent. Thoughts?

A). I donât think thatâs the case. There may have been a bit too much blue-sky blogging on that by some. Perhaps the following background helps to clarify all of this a bit:

Chris Eberspacher is a 20-year PV industry veteran who joined us 2.5 years ago as an R&D group manager at a time when our technology was already in full development and the technical roadmap established. His initial review of the many things we had started doing concluded that this all makes a tremendous amount of sense, has a lot of distinct advantages, and that we should proceed with exactly these plans without incorporating any of the work pioneered by Chris himself.

It turns out that things continued like this. Many of our most significant advances and breakthroughs came from intensely trying new things often diametrically counter to any beliefs. So our core engineering culture got reinforced very much around questioning the past, not assuming anything, and fundamentally not at all that much valuing the past 20 years of solar research. Chris still managed to be part of this for a good amount of time, with him in particular representing us externally very well.

But the internal leadership issue ultimately boiled over late last year after our pilot line team started producing product-quality cells that were more efficient than those produced in the lab by the research team managed by Chris. Lab cells are supposed to be steps ahead not behind the pilot-line cells. So our key engineers, our board, etc. ended up concluding that Chris, for all his experience and industry stature, had to be replaced with one of our younger guys who was the de facto research group leader anyway already.

We did a reorg and moved Chris into a non-operational role. We accepted that he most likely may have larger ambitions that the scope of that. Sure enough, he decided to resign the next month and started looking for a new job. Two more months later he landed at Applied. I actually helped him with getting the job at Applied. Heâs going to do very well there among other 20-year solar-industry veterans and presumably a culture that values that kind of experience more than we ever did.

Our own lab team is styling now. And our pilot line running even better. For our first product, the pilot line matters foremost of course. So none of all of the above really affects our product introduction all that much. But we also want to continue to be a powerhouse of lab innovation in the style thatâs proven to work best for us: Mostly driven by smart kids straight out of school who we give all the tools and toys to try crazy new things; plus just a thin dose of managers who know how to earn their respect.


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

More I read,the more I like
============================================================


A key advantage of the ink is specific to an idiosyncracy of the CIGS semiconductor: Because it consists of four elements which have to be in just the right atomic ratios to each other, the ink serves a useful purpose by effectively "locking in" a uniform distribution ("by design"). The homogeneous mix of nanoparticles in the ink in just the right overall amounts ensures that the atomic ratios of the four elements are correct wherever the ink is printed, even across large areas of deposition. This contrasts to vacuum deposition processes where, due to the four-element nature of CIGS, one effectively has to "atomically" synchronize various materials sources -- a challenge with no successful precedent in any industry on a repeatable high-yield production-scale basis.










Printing is by far the simplest, highest-yield, and most capital-efficient technique for depositing thin films. Printing is extremely fast; the equipment involved is easy to use and maintain; and it works in plain air (no vacuum chamber required).

Another key advantage of a printable CIGS ink is that one can print it just where one wants it to be, achieving high materials utilization of the semiconductor material.

Printing is much simpler and more robust than vacuum deposition techniques such as sputtering or evaporation which have conventionally been used to fabricate thin-film solar cells; the process cost of vacuum techniques is so high that the result is not an inexpensive cell relative to the per-square-meter economics that the solar industry requires.










Nanosolar is the first and so far only company in the world that has managed to make efficient solar cells work on a metal foil substrate that is both low cost and highly conductive. Our metal foil has a conductivity that is more than 20 times higher than that of the stainless steel used by others -- and thus enables major cost reduction on the solar cell's thin-film bottom electrode.

Note that a thin-film solar cell consists most fundamentally of an absorber layer (the semiconductor) sandwiched in between a top and a bottom electrode layer. If the thin films of a solar cell are deposited directly onto a highly conductive metal foil (as opposed to glass or stainless steel), then the bottom electrode gets much simpler because the substrate can do the job of carrying the current.










Roll-to-roll processing is the manufacturing implementation framework of choice for any product with very low cost required per large areas of deposition. Rolls that are meters wide and miles long can be processed efficiently with very high throughput (and thus minimal capital cost) in equipment with a very small footprint.

A key advantage of roll-to-roll processing is that after the first few meters of initializing a new roll, the whole process hits a steady state which can then be maintained for the entire rest of the roll, resulting in very uniform deposition process parameters applied to essentially the entire (foil) substrate. This is much better than processing wafers or glass plates, which have to be moved in and out of each process station individually, introducing undesirable start-up and move-out process state variability (and cycle time cost).

Edge effects are also greatly minimized in roll processing (whereas processing glass plates or wafers requires much work and capital dealing with uniformity issues at the edges of the substrate). 


Nanosolar has developed a fundamental innovation on its solar cells' top electrode (not shown below) which has two major benefits: It supports an entire order of magnitude higher current than any past or present thin-film solar product known; and it is very low cost.

Note that obtaining a good top electrode is challenging because it has to be both transparent and conductive. 










With conventional silicon solar technology, individual wafer cells are sorted into performance bins before the cells are assembled into panels. This ensures that each panel produced contains cells with matched electrical characteristics.

Nanosolar's approach combines the advantages of thin films with the power of electrically matched cells, resulting in better panel efficiency distribution and yield.

Note that with conventional thin-film-on-glass solar technology, cell sorting and matching is not possible because cell transitions are created through scribing after they are already deposited on the glass substrate. But since each cell has somewhat different electrical characteristics, a thin-film-on-glass panel consists of cells that may not be well-matched.

It turns out that the effect of electrical mismatch per cell leads to exponentially greater losses per panel as a result, and panel yield and efficiency distribution suffer: A bad cell results in a bad panel with thin-film-on-glass technology; but with a cell-sorting technology, only that cell will be a loss. The value impact of that difference is staggering: If a panel contains 100 cells, sorted-cell assembly lowers the yield-loss cost of a bad cell to 1/100th compared to monolithic cell integration.












Based on our cell and product design innovations, Nanosolar is capable of delivering high-power solar panels with 5-10 times higher current than other thin-film solar panels on the market today.

This has enabled us to work with our partners and customers to dramatically reduce the balance-of-system cost involved in deploying solar electricity systems.

The amount of current that a panel can support is important because current capacity limitations negatively impact balance-of-system cost and thus power economics. 

===============================================================


"That's impossible" is a good foundation for fundamental intellectual property -- especially if that statement comes from a leading domain expert -- yet one has already made it happen. Nanosolar engineers and scientsts have produced such progress in an entire array of technology areas.

Nanosolar owns the definitive portfolio of intellectual property with respect to the worldâs most cost-efficient solar electricity products, specifically thin-film solar cells that can be produced with very high throughput.

Nanosolar has over 180 patents issued, licensed, or pending regarding all critical aspects of nanostructured materials, solar-cell technology, cost-efficient high-throughput processing, and relevant product and equipment designs. This includes exclusively licensed patents from pioneering work in the field: For instance, Nanosolar owns the printed CIGS patents with the very earliest filing dates of any patents.

The company has assembled a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio covering all aspects of technology platform, product technology, including several foundational device patents as well as key enabling techniques associated with the construction, optimization, and application of its technology in a way that spans all critical component, device, process, and system level aspects.

Nanosolar is constantly augmenting its IP position, mainly through new in-house innovation but also through collaborations and through sponsorship of the most innovative work in the area of cost-efficient solar cells. 

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Product reliability has always been our top design priority. Our panels are rigorously tested to achieve a durability compatible with our 25-year warranty.

In fact, we test our products under much harsher conditions than mandated by official certification standards. We also expose them to harsh outdoor environments such as the Arizona desert and the Antarctic:

Accelerated lifetime testing is possible through specialized equipment that performs many â40Â°C to +85Â°C heat cycles per day, that exposes solar cells to intense UV light, and that exposes them to intense humidity. This has made it possible for us to study potential degradation mechanisms at accelerated time scale during product development.

During production, we continuously perform tests on randomly sampled production output in the form of accelerated lifetime tests under simulated high-stress conditions in indoor environmental chambers.

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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Leadership.Looks very good.
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Our team is one of the industry's smartest and most talented groups of people; our leadership includes:

Martin Roscheisen
Chief Executive Officer
Martin Roscheisen is a serially successful technology entrepreneur with a passion for building industry-defining products and companies. Named one of the United States' top 10 entrepreneurs under the age of 40 by Fortune, Martin Roscheisen has a track record of creating three information technology companies with a combined value of more than $1.2 billion. In 2001, Roscheisen decided that green energy is mandatory in today's world as well as a vast entrepreneurial opportunity, and started developing the very best team and technology to turn solar electricity mainstream. An Austrian citizen born in Munich, Martin Roscheisen got his Silicon Valley apprenticeship as a teenager during a year at Xerox PARC. He received advanced engineering degrees from Stanford University and Munich Technical University, and holds a doctorate from Stanford University's School of Engineering.

James McNicholas
Chief Financial Officer
James McNicholas joined Nanosolar from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies where he was the top finance executive of the $5 billion hard disk drive business. Prior to Hitachi, McNicholas held a distinguished succession of financial positions at IBM over a period of 22 years, including serving as the top finance executive of four IBM business units. For the IBM PC companyâs manufacturing & development operations, McNicholas managed the worldwide financial operations of 12 manufacturing plants and two labs. As the controller of IBMâs Consumer Division, McNicholas redirected business from the retail channel to direct fulfillment. In 1999, McNicholas was called upon to become the top finance executive of IBM's Storage Systems Division where he established best-of-breed global operational management for 13 manufacturing facilities and four R&D facilities worldwide. McNicholas holds an M.S. degree in Management from Stanford University and a B.S.in Finance from Drexel University, and also served on the board of directors of Hitachi's storage companies in China and the Philippines.

Werner Dumanski
Executive Vice President of Operations
Werner Dumanski was IBM's top manufacturing executive prior to joining Nanosolar, responsible for the company's $4.5 billion storage components business, a world-wide organization of 12,000 people, and a billion-dollar equipment budget. One of the largest volume producers of thin-film disks and recording heads in the world, Dumanski's unit generated as much as 60% of all of IBM's profit while successfully implementing several generations of the industry's most challenging and advanced new disk technologies. As part of this, Dumanski also succeeded in delivering on one of the steepest manufacturing ramp-ups ever for a high-tech product -- for a new storage disk that enabled the Apple iPod product. Werner Dumanski started his career at IBM's wafer and disk production operation in Mainz, Germany, helping ramp this business to a high volume operation with the industry's leading cost structure. In 1993, he assumed responsibility for IBM's San Jose recording manufacturing operation which he overhauled, increasing wafer production by a factor of 3, reducing cycle time by a factor of 6, and establishing a modern SPC and APC controlled factory.

Brian Sager
Vice President of Corporate Development
Brian Sager manages the company's government programs, its intellectual property portfolio, and its relationships with customers in the United States. Prior to co-founding Nanosolar, he led a high-growth biotechnology practice at Ernst & Young where he advised industry-leading companies on corporate finance issues, R&D portfolio management, and technology licensing. He has worked with both private and public companies at all stages of growth, including Genentech, Hewlett-Packard, Maxygen, Genencor, and Symmyx. Dr. Sager has negotiated more than 100 licensing, R&D collaboration, and join venture deals. Brian Sager earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University and did his postdoctoral work at Harvard University.

Erik Oldekop
Managing Director, Nanosolar International
Erik Oldekop is responsible for the company's supply and customer relationships world-wide. Oldekop was an investment professional with Deutsche Bank AG where he focused on semiconductors and industrial applications. Prior to this, he was a Vice President at Deutsche Bank working in Frankfurt, Tokyo, and San Francisco in various management functions. Dr. Oldekop is a physicist by training and performed nuclear solid-state physics semiconductor research at Hahn-Meitner Institute in Berlin and Philipps University Marburg, Germany.

Martin Roscheisen, see above

Brian Sager, see above

Bill Gurley
Benchmark Capital
Bill Gurley joined Benchmark Capital in 1999 after spending two years as a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Before entering the venture capital business, Bill Gurley spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston focusing on the personal computer hardware and software business. His research coverage included such companies as Dell, Compaq, and Microsoft, and he was the lead analyst on the Amazon IPO. In both 1995 and 1996, Bill Gurley was a member of the Institutional Investor All-American Research Team. Prior to his investment career, Bill Gurley was a design engineer at Compaq Computer, where he worked on products such as the 486/50 and Compaq's initial multi-processor server. Before Compaq, he served in the technical marketing group of Advanced Micro Devices' embedded processor division.

Erik Straser
MDV
Erik Straser joined MDV in 1998 and specializes in investing in and building energy, materials and software companies. Prior to MDV Erik worked at Interval Research Corp., a technology incubator funded by Paul Allen, and at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member. He also consulted to several seed and early stage venture capital firms. While pursuing a PhD in mechanical engineering at Stanford, Erik led an interdisciplinary project between the electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering departments to develop a next-generation monitoring system for critical facilities. He holds a U.S. patent from his research work. From 1996 to 1998, he served as president of the Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students (BASES), Stanford's largest student group focused on entrepreneurship and technology management.

Siva Sivaram, Ph.D.
Independent Director
Dr. Sivaram most recently was the Chief Operating Officer of Matrix Semiconductor, bringing to Matrix unrivaled experience in running a high-volume semiconductor manufacturing business. After receiving his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Dr. Sivaram began a 14-year career at Intel, where he ended up serving as General Manager of the billion-dollar IC Procurement and Enabling Division, responsible for portions of Intel's chipset design, all external integrated circuit procurement, and production of Intel chips which were not manufactured in Intel fabs. In that position, Dr. Sivaram was known worldwide as the world's largest consumer of semiconductor foundry wafers. Dr. Sivaram authored the book Chemical Vapor Deposition: Thermal and Plasma Deposition of Electronic Materials (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1995) that is used at many U.S. universities at the graduate level. He has published over fifty technical papers and also held positions as Research Scholar at Matsu----a Electric in Japan, Technologist at SEMATECH, and Adjunct Faculty at San Jose State University.

Doug Norby
Board Advisor
Doug Norby has been vice president and CFO of some of technology's most admired companies including LSI Logic, Mentor Graphics, and Syntex Corporation. Norby is a director of LSI Logic Corporation, Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Jazz Semiconductor Inc., among others. From 1985-1992, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Lucasfilm Ltd. Norby received his B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.


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## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Investors
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Nanosolar is a privately held company with financial backing from an elite group of private technology investors, including:

* Benchmark Capital -- the venture firm behind such franchise companies as eBay, Handspring, Juniper Networks and Red Hat Software;

* MDV - Mohr Davidow Ventures -- the venture firm behind such leading companies as Rambus, Epigram, FormFactor, and Agile Software;

* SAC Capital -- one of the world's leading public/private investment funds;

* GLG Partners -- one of the world's leading public/private investment funds;

* Swiss Re -- the world's leading and most diversified reinsurer;

* LGT Capital Group -- Europe's largest wealth and asset management group;

* Grazia Equity -- the original backer of Conergy AG, the world's largest PV system integrator;

* Mitsui & Co., Ltd. -- Japan's oldest and largest international trading company with over 300 years of business presence in the world and more than $100 billion in annual business;

* OnPoint Technologies -- the US Army's private equity fund;

* Stanford University -- the place where many of our team members received their education;

* Individual investors including Martin Roscheisen, Sergey Brin, Carl & Larry Page, Jeff Skoll (via Capricorn Management), Klaus Tschira (via FirstVentury), Dietmar Hopp, Mark Pincus, Reid Hoffman, Sunil Paul, Bernhard Beck, and Christian Reitberger. 

*Nanosolar is presently not accepting new capital.*


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