Earth Equity News

A Cheaper Route to Solar Cells. By Matthew L. Wald, NYTimes, 10/19/10. “A company that secured a Department of Energy grant to pursue a breakthrough idea in the manufacture of solar cells plans to announce on [October 19] that it has raised $20 million to commercialize its technique, which it says will reduce the price of solar panels by 40 percent. The company, 1366 Technologies of Lexington, Mass., has found a simpler way to produce the basic building block of solar cells: silicon wafers. It uses molten silicon to cast the wafers in their final form, six inches on one side and 200 microns thick, or about eight-thousandths of an inch. The current method is to cast the silicon in huge ingots or grow it in giant crystals and then saw off thin pieces, which wastes about half of the silicon."