Solar3D creates new solar market opportunities

Wednesday, 25 January 2012 06:50

Solar3D Inc., the developer of a breakthrough 3-dimensional solar cell technology to maximize the conversion of sunlight into electricity, explained how its breakthrough 3-dimensional solar cell technology will create new solar market opportunities by changing the economics of solar energy to enable many new cost-effective applications.

“Today’s cost per watt metric for measuring solar cell competitiveness, while tempting in its simplicity, is inadequate to quantify the total cost of a solar system,” said Jim Nelson, president and CEO of Solar3D. “A recent article by Marcelo Gomez in Renewable Energy World predicted that Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) will become the standard by which solar systems will be evaluated. Solar3D’s high efficiency solar cells, occupying a smaller space, will result in a TCO that will be lower than conventional solar cells.”

Conventional, less efficient, solar cells require more space, maintenance, and other collateral support expenses. Solar3D’s 3-dimensional solar cells are predicted to be substantially more efficient than low efficiency, cheap imported products. As a result of higher power density in a smaller space, all of the associated support components can be less costly and less bulky. Smaller panels and frames, less support structure, less weight per watt, and less land or building space will be used to build high power solar systems.

“With our high efficiency 3-dimensional cells, area or space limited applications that were not suitable for photovoltaics in the past can now be considered for solar systems,” said Nelson. “New and existing rooftop, mobile, military, law enforcement and consumer product applications will all be able to take advantage of much less collateral-cost-hungry solar systems constructed with Solar3D cells. By using our high efficiency, 3-dimensional cells, many of these new applications will benefit from a smaller solar footprint, as well a significantly lower TCO, as compared to conventional solar cells.”

Nelson continued, “I believe that this is the future of solar. The time will come that high efficiency cells like ours will cover every application, including utility scale solar farms.”

The company has received numerous inquiries from prospective partners and customers and is initiating business development efforts to establish Solar3D cells in the marketplace.