vitamin_j

With Thin Film, U.S. Might Take the Lead in Solar Market

I would like to hear more discussion of these products in terms of "balance of system" costs. Greentech Media has put out good articles on this recently.

While I don't consider it an "either/or" proposition, I'm still skeptical about thin film because of its low efficiencies. If, in a rough comparison, you need two thin film panels for every one crystalline silicon panel, that's twice as many mounts, and twice as much space used per installation. Those two factors add to costs and limit thin film's advantage.

I'm interested to see how some of the new non-panel technologies look - Nanosolar claims to offer a skin you can just unroll on a rooftop, for example. They also claim higher efficiencies. Then again, they are famous for claims, not yet famous for results.