If the blow-out trade show is an unmistakeable sign that an industry is ready for prime time, then this is solar energy’s year. More than 6,000 people are packing Solar Power 2006 at the San Jose convention center, and more than 160 companies have set up booths. It’s all a bit deja vu of the optimism and giddiness that pervaded the giant Consumer Electronics Show during the dot-com boom – minus the Vegas setting and the booth babes, of course.
The opening session this morning focused on the future of solar technology. SunPower founder Richard Swanson predicted the falling cost and growing efficiency of solar cells would accelerate in the next few years, outstripping previous projections. He said SunPower, the Silicon Valley subsidiary of chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor, would announce a solar cell this fall with an efficiency of 23 percent, which appears to be a record for a commerial product. And he predicted that by 2013, the cost of a solar module will drop to $1.44 a watt, making photovoltaics close to competitive with conventional power sources.
The silicon shortage has slowed the dramatic fall in solar power prices of recent years. But Australian solar power pioneer Martin Green told conference-goers the shortage has opened the door to develop next-generation technologies such as thin-film solar. That technology deposits solar cells on a film that is 100th the thickness of traditional silicon wafers. His team at the University of New South Wales in Sydney is pursuing research into thin film technologies that could boost the efficiency of solar power to as high as 60 percent.
Green Wombat 
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