Green Wombat

Just in time for the Solar Power 2006 conference getting under way in San Jose, SunPower today unveiled its lastest high-efficiency solar panel. The Silicon Valley company, a subsidiary of chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor,  says its new panel will produce 315 watts, or about  50 percent more power per square foot than conventional solar panels. That means a typical rooftop solar energy system will use half as many panels in about half the space.

The SPR-315 panels, which go on sale in early-to-mid 2007, use SunPower’s next generation solar cells.

Trade shows exist to produce press releases about the latest and
greatest gizmos, and I could blog about them until I’m blue in the
face. But what strikes me as notable here is the fact that solar
companies have begun to even make product announcements. Long a cottage
industry, the solar business didn’t have a lot of innovation  to
trumpet in years past. That’s changing fast, and developing the most
efficient, affordable and eye-pleasing technology will be a big
competitive advantage once companies begin selling solar panels like
designer kitchens.

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Originally uploaded by lowerlighter.

Hundreds of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and policymakers gather in San Jose this week for Solar Power 2006, billed as the nation’s largest solar energy conference.
The agenda is here. After pre-conference workshops today, Solar Power 2006 offically opens Tuesday morning. Sessions at the four-day event range from the geeky – Silicon Feedstock Manufacturing Developments – to the forward-looking – California: The World’s Third Largest Solar Market and Growing. One panel discussion that should be well-attended is What’s In, What’s Hot: Investing Opportunities in Solar Power, featuring VCs, angel investors and hedge fund managers. The wombat will be blogging from the conference beginning Wednesday.

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A word of advice to solar energy entrepreneurs: you just might want to think twice before pitching that business plan to Vinod Khosla, legendary Silicon Valley VC and clean tech guru. Khosla, who’s placing big bets on biofuels, told the audience attending Tuesday’s California Clean Tech Open awards ceremony in San Francisco that “solar is going in the wrong direction.”

The problem? In Khosla’s view, solar energy proponents are too fixated on making solar cells cheaper to produce. “If I were an entrepreneur in solar, I would not be working on lowering the cost of solar cells; I would be working on higher efficiency solar cells.”

“Solar of course is a great technology and we imagine many uses,” he said. “But even with subsidies solar is quite uncompetitive. Being a Republican, I don’t like subsidies.”

Much more promising on the solar front, Khosla noted, are solar thermal power plants, some which use the sun’s rays to heat fluids to create steam to drive electricity-producing turbines.

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