Nanosolar

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Nanosolar, Inc.

Type	Private
Founded	2002
Founder	Martin Roscheisen Brian Sager
Headquarters	San Jose, California, U.S.
Key people	Martin Roscheisen (CEO) James McNicholas (CFO) Werner Dumanski Brian Sager Erik Oldekop
Industry	Solar Energy
Products	Solar panels
Revenue	US$3,100,000 (2007) ^[1]
Website	nanosolar.com

Nanosolar is a developer of solar power technology. Based in Palo Alto, CA, Nanosolar has developed and commercialized an extremely low-cost printable solar cell manufacturing process. The company started selling panels mid-December 2007, and plans to profitably sell them at around $1 per watt.^[2]^[3]^[4]

1 Financial Backers and Manufacturing
2 Management
3 Technology
4 Discussion
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Financial Backers and Manufacturing

Nanosolar was started in 2002 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. The company has received financing from a number of technology investors including Benchmark Capital, MDV, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. Nanosolar received the largest amount in a round of Venture Capital technology funding, amongst United States companies during Q2 2006, with 100 million USD of new funding secured^[5]. Nanosolar plans to build a large production facility in San Jose and in Germany^[6], with an annual capacity of 430 megawatts, enough to roughly triple total American solar cell production, moving the US from third worldwide to second, behind Japan^[7]. Nanosolar is also building a panel manufacturing plant in Berlin. Germany is heavily invested in this company as a consequence of government subsidies for solar power.^[8] On December 12, 2007 the company announced^[9] that it had started solar cell production in its San Jose factory, with its German facility slated to go into operation in the 1st quarter of 2008. On December 18, 2007 the company began shipping their first solar panels for a one-megawatt municipal power plant in Germany.^[10]

[edit] Management

CEO Martin Roscheisen is a technology entrepreneur whose three previous technology companies reached a combined value of more than $1.2 billion; ^[11] 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.

[edit] Technology

The company uses copper indium gallium diselenide—which can theoretically achieve up to 19.5% efficiency in perfect samples—to build their thin film solar cells. The company's technology gained early industry recognition with the presentation of a Small Times Magazine award at a leading nanotech business event in 2005.^[12] Nanosolar's solar cells have been verified by NREL to be as efficient as 14.6% in 2006, with no more recent results announced by the company though.^[13] Technical details of Nanosolar's new manufacturing techniques have been disclosed in patent applications.^[14] Some information about their process has become available in a Scientific American article (in German). ^[15] These details involve a semiconductor ink that it claims will enable it to produce solar cells with a basic printing process, rather than using slow and expensive high-vacuum based thin-film deposition processes. In Nanosolar's process, the ink is deposited on a flexible substrate (the “paper”), and then nanocomponents in the ink align themselves properly via molecular self-assembly.

Nanosolar has developed a suite of in-house capabilities for creating nanostructured components based on various patented and patent-pending techniques. It uses nanostructured components as the basis for creating printable semiconductors, printable transparent electrodes, novel forms of advanced nanocomposite solar-cell architecture, as well as powerful new forms of barrier films. ^[16]

According to the company, "leveraging recent science advances in nanostructured materials, Nanosolar has developed a proprietary ink that makes it possible to simply print the semiconductor of a high-performance solar cell. This ink is based on Nanosolar developing various proprietary forms of nanoparticles and associated organic dispersion chemistry and processing techniques suitable for delivering a semiconductor of high electronic quality."^[17]^[18]

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 more conductive and less expensive than the stainless steel substrates that are often used in thin-film solar panels.[1]

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 ^[19] 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."^[20]

[edit] Discussion

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Nanosolar has drawn criticism from skeptics who question the company's claims about its new technology^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27]. These critiques have fallen chiefly into four categories:

Product cost. Nanosolar claims to have produced "the world's lowest-cost solar panel."^[28] This cost has been variously reported as "cell costs [of] only $0.36 per peak watt,"^[29] a "raw uninstalled cost of solar electricity [of] about 40 to 60 cents per watt,"^[23] and an "aim to produce the panels for 99 cents a watt."^[30] The source reporting the $0.36 per peak watt figure^[29] contained factual errors^[21] and it is unclear whether this figure is accurate, though in a separate article it is reported that Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen declined to comment on it.^[22] Nonetheless, the article served as a flashpoint for skepticism of Nanosolar's low cost claims.^[21]^[22] It should be noted that a cell cost of $0.36/watt is consistent with a wholesale solar panel cost of $0.99/watt and Nanosolar has not been criticized for being inconsistent in its claims; rather, skeptics have expressed doubt that Nanosolar can produce a product at the costs claimed in the foreseeable future.^[22]
Technological approach. Proponents of high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells have criticized the thin-film approach to photovoltaics for its lower power conversion efficiencies, arguing that high power conversion efficiency is more economically advantageous to a complete PV system than are the reduced material costs that typically motivate thin-film approaches like Nanosolar's.^[31]^[32] Thin-film proponents argue the converse.
Start of commercial production. Nanosolar's expected date for the start of commercial production has been inconsistently stated in the news media, ranging from 2005 to 2007.^[33]^[34]^[23]^[35] These perceived delays, coupled with the departure of high-profile R&D scientist Chris Eberspacher, fueled speculation that Nanosolar was having difficulty developing its product.^[36]^[37] Roscheisen said in an interview in July 2007 that the company and its investors are willing to incur delays to ensure its product is properly developed. He also noted that Eberspacher's departure was not related to turmoil within the company, but to incompatibilities between the R&D philosophies of Eberspacher and Nanosolar.^[38] Nanosolar's first official announcement of a target date for the start of commercial production came in December 2006, when it said it would begin production by the end of 2007.^[39] Nanosolar announced shipment of its first panel on 18 December 2007.^[40]
Technical specifications and pricing. Nanosolar does not publicly disclose the technical specifications or wholesale costs of its modules.^[41] As a result, the company's cost and efficiency claims have been treated with skepticism in some quarters.^[34]^[42]