Nanosolar will anounce selling of $1/watt retail panels

Re: Nanosolar will anounce selling of $1/watt retail panels

This company has been awfully quiet the past few months, after a big round of hype.

Not sure they have actually got anything in production yet. Has anyone heard anything? - A search of news stories for the past few months turns up almost nothing new.

Re: Nanosolar will anounce selling of $1/watt retail panels

At least two places now I have seen predict a market glut of panels in 2009, due to both falling sales and rising production.

It will not surprise me to see Nanosolar and several other startups that leaped on the hype bandwagon go under this year.

http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.2290

Re: Nanosolar will anounce selling of $1/watt retail panels

Press releases are a dime a dozen. If press releases were remotely related to truth, I'd have the 8KW propane powered fuel cell for $15K sitting outside my shop, making reliable power and hot water. That was "coming in two years" in either 1997 or 1999, I forget. Last time I looked they cost about $90K and appeared to have an operational life of about a year. Then it was Stirling engines - I think if you drop $30K you can perhaps get a nice quiet 2KW unit to put on your yacht, but if you don't have a yacht or two or three, you can't afford one. Gas Microturbines - again, $30-100K products.

So, I have an 8KW Diesel that set me back $2000 (it's used, but it's a Northern Lights), and a 5KW gas that set me back $200 (it's an elderly Kohler). Fuel backup covered with actual products that can actually be bought, not vaporware.

The Sub dollar per watt solar products have also proved, repeatedly, to be bogus. Unisolar was going to be that - cheap cheap cheap, we pump the stuff out by the mile - what, $7/watt last time I bothered to look? It's flexible, so they can charge more, and they do. Remember good old green and gold from Australia with their vaporware concentrating tracker, supposed (IIRC) to be available for purchase in the US spring 2006 - whoops, not true? It's all about fleecing the venture capitalists until actual product hits the retail market, IMHO.

And when it does, if (as they are now) Kaneka and Evergreen are flirting with $4/watt, the best you're likely to see (no matter what it costs the manufacturer to make) is going to be $3.75, because their job is to make a profit, not to make cheap solar cells. If they can underprice the competition and make 250% profit, that's what will happen, right up until someone else starts selling one cheaper yet.

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true"
"A bird in hand is worth two in the bush"
"Don't hold your breath"