March 29, 2008 Ð Vol.13 No. 1

A RAY OF HOPE IN SOLAR ENERGY.

ItÕs such a big planet. ThereÕs so much going on Ð so much of it frightening. The mainstream daily news is often so grim that it overshadows all the positive news thatÕs never seen or heard - itÕs safe to say - by most people.

If they only knew. ThereÕs more good news out there than bad.

Many want the world to be powered by clean solar energy. Eventually they may get their wish. ThereÕs certainly a continuing flow of good solar news - including here in the beleaguered US of A.

In Massachusetts a small startup company has formed that could revolutionize silicon-based photovoltaic solar electric power. That company, 1366 Technologies, has a new manufacturing process as well as new cell architecture that, says the company, will bring the cost of electricity from multi-crystalline silicon solar in line with that from coal-fired power plants.

With the new architecture, surface texture and metallization of the cell are improved which enhance cell efficiency by 25 percent: from 15-19 percent. While these improvements in cell efficiency and cost lowering improvements in manufacturing are proprietary and understandably not discussed, the company does describe one component of its new cell - its light capturing ribbon.

As small as they may seem, the interconnect wires, that metallic grid visible on most solar cells, block light and hampers the performance and electric output of the cell. 1366 is using a commercially available light-capturing ribbon to reflect 80 percent of sunlight that hits it back to the cell to generate electricity. With solar cells all minor improvements help....

(Green Earth News)