Blue Skies, From Now On
Monday, October 6th, 2008We got to see many of the Maryland homes on the DC Solar Tour this weekend. The center of Maryland solar activity is clearly Takoma Park. Sadly, Roscoe the Rooster and Chris Carter’s Lone Gunmen have moved on. But happily, the hippies endure. They are a little grayer and have traded in their VW Buses for Toyota Prii.
Several photovoltaic technologies were on display. “Green All Over” on Conway Avenue has SunPower panels. These are traditional, crystalline Silicon panels… very effective and very expensive, not just in terms of cost but also input manufacturing energy. I read in Scientific American that SunPower is able to squeeze out a few more watts by moving the conduction wires to the back of the cells, where they don’t block the sun.
Lots of innovative companies are now hard at work on “thin film” solar panels. Thin films can essentially be painted onto a surface using printing technology, and can be bent or rolled-up without damage. Alternately, they can be incorporated into ordinary building materials like roofing tiles.
The cheerful, marigold “Hutchinswasser Haus” on Holly Avenue employs UNI-SOLAR thin film panels. These are thin film, amorphous Silicon cells. UNI-SOLAR is manufactured by Energy Conversion Devices. Another, prominent competitor in this space is Innovalight.
No Takoma Park solar tour would be complete without Mike Tidwell’s Clean Energy Home, and in fact he and his Chesapeake Climate Action Network give them regularly, complete with endearing descriptions of his “pancake-powered” push lawnmower.
Mike was able to score BP (formerly British Petrolium) thin-film panels before they gave up and ceased production, re-focusing on traditional Silicon. BP’s effort, like that of the more successful First Solar company, employed Cadmium Terlluride.
The other thin film technology on the horizon involves CIGS cells (Copper Indium Gallium Selenium) and is being pursued by companies like nanosolar and Miasolé. (source, Earth: The Sequel.)