Nanosolar
Founded | 2002 |
---|---|
Founder | Martin Roscheisen Brian Sager |
Defunct | 2013 |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Eugenia Corrales (CEO) Dave Jackrel John McAdoo Becky Baybrook John Bender |
Products | Solar panels |
Revenue | US$3,100,000 (2007)[1] |
Website | www |
Nanosolar was a developer of
Financial backers and manufacturing
Nanosolar was started in 2002 and headquartered in
Nanosolar planned to build a large production facility in San Jose, and in Germany at
On December 12, 2007 the company announced[12] that it had started solar cell production in its San Jose factory, with its German facility slated to go into operation in the 1st quarter of 2008. The company said in 2006 that the San Jose factory, when fully built, would have the capacity to produce 430 megawatts of cells each year.[13]
On December 18, 2007 the company began shipping its first solar panels for a one-megawatt municipal power plant in Germany.[14]
On February 17, 2012 Nanosolar announced they had achieved 115MW capacity, $20 Million in additional funding to further expand manufacturing capacity and a NREL Thin-Film Solar Aperture Efficiency of 17.1%.[15] This capacity was just over one quarter of the 430 megawatts predicted five years previously.
Management
On Jan. 19 2012 former EVP of Engineering & Operations Eugenia Corrales was named CEO following CEO Geoff Tate returning to retirement. Tate had been CEO of Nanosolar since March 22, 2010 having been hired out of retirement as an interim CEO for his experience in leading a company into volume production as CEO of Rambus.[16] Tate replaced co-founder Martin Roscheisen who had been the company's Chairman & CEO for the past eight years; no reason was given for Roscheisen's exit.[17]
On June 25, 2012, nano solar hired 3 new sales & marketing executives: Stephan Hansen, executive vice president of Worldwide Sales; Roy Shaw, head of North America Sales and Stefan Zschiegner, vice president of Worldwide Marketing. Prior to joining Nanosolar, Hansen led the European sales organization of First Solar for more than seven years. Shaw brings over 25 years of sales management experience in the solar industry. He most recently was director of USA Sales at
On Sep. 11, 2012, Nanosolar appointed Karl Steigele to the position of President & COO. Eugenia Corrales left the company to pursue other ventures. Before joining Nanosolar, Steigele spent more than 30 years in international management and consulting at IBM, where he worked with Fortune 500 global manufacturing companies, including Intel, Hitachi, ABB, Thomson, Siemens, Sony and McKesson, among others.
Technology
The company used
The company's technology gained early industry recognition with the presentation of a Small Times Magazine award at a leading nanotech business event in 2005.
Nanosolar's solar cells were verified by
In September 2009, Nanosolar announced the launch of production at a rate of 640 MW annually;[25] however, ramp-up to volume production after the announcement took an additional six months,[24] limiting actual production in 2009 to an estimated 4 MW,[26] and as of August 2010 the plant was still ramping up toward its announced capacity.[27] Since the hiring of new CEO Geoff Tate, the company declined to discuss its actual manufacturing capacity,[24][26] but said that its target for 2010 was to ship panels for "several ... megawatt-size projects" and "[build] panels for projects that have been identified that can help build the case for an operating history and bankability in 2011."[24]
Nanosolar developed a suite of in-house capabilities for creating nanostructured components based on various patented and patent-pending techniques. It used nanostructured components as the basis for creating printable semiconductors, printable transparent electrodes, novel forms of advanced nanocomposite solar-cell design and powerful new forms of barrier films.[28]
According to the company at the time, "leveraging recent science advances in
Two advantages over earlier technologies were that a printing process is quick and also makes it easy to deposit a uniform layer of the ink, resulting in a layer with the correct ratio of elements everywhere on the substrate. Also, the ink was printed only where needed, so there was less waste of material. Last, the substrate material on which the ink was printed was much more conductive and less expensive than the stainless steel substrates that are often used in thin-film solar panels.
These solar cells successfully blended the needs for efficiency, low cost, and longevity and were designed to be easy to install due to their flexibility and light weight. Estimates by Nanosolar of the cost of these cells fell roughly between 1/10 and 1/5[31] the industry standard per kilowatt. However, solar module prices fell dramatically since that prediction in 2006.[32]
The company implied that their solar cells would last more than 25 years by saying they "achieve a durability compatible with our 25-year warranty."[33] They also commissioned a study by Black and Veatch that found their 25-year warranty to be compatible with their module design.[24]
See also
References
- ^ Nanosolar, Inc Archived 2008-05-01 at the Wayback Machine Yahoo Finance
- ^ Vidal, John (December 29, 2007). "Solar energy 'revolution' brings green power closer". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 2013-09-01. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
- ^ Markoff, John (2007-12-18). "Nanosolar". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
- ^ "Nanosolar". ubergizmo. Archived from the original on 2007-12-21. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
- ^ "The growing CIGS graveyard: Nanosolar liquidation auction | SiliconBeat". www.siliconbeat.com. Archived from the original on 2013-07-19.
- ^ "Get yer cheap next-gen solar tech, courtesy of the Nanosolar auction". 13 August 2013. Archived from the original on 16 September 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
- ^ "rmr | The personal blog of R. Martin Roscheisen". blog.rmartinr.com. Archived from the original on 2013-10-03. Retrieved 2023-05-10.
- ^ "Nanosolar, Thin-Film Solar Hype Firm, Officially Dead". Archived from the original on 2013-09-22. Retrieved 2013-09-11.
- ^ "Venture Capital Funding". Investor's Business Daily. 2006-07-24. Archived from the original on 2007-09-25.
- ^ "Nanosolar Selects Manufacturing Sites". Nanosolar. 2006-12-12. Archived from the original on 2007-02-18. Retrieved 2007-02-11.
- ^ Hibbard, Justin (2006-06-26). "Bright Days for Nanosolar". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2016-11-02. Retrieved 2023-01-02.
- ^ "Nanosolar announces start of thin-film production". earth2tech.com. 2007-12-12. Archived from the original on 2012-07-08. Retrieved 2007-12-13.
- ^ "Nanosolar to Build in San Jose". www.redherring.com. Archived from the original on 2007-12-23.
- ^ "Nanosolar Ships First Panels, 2007-12-18". Archived from the original on January 16, 2008.
- ^ http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog#194Nanosolar Blog Archived 2012-04-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Nanosolar names new CEO". Reuters. 2012-01-19. Archived from the original on 2021-05-18. Retrieved 2023-05-10.
- ^ Semiconductor Veteran Geoff Tate Named CEO of Nanosolar, Inc. Archived 2010-03-31 at the Wayback Machine from Nanosolar Blog
- ^ I. Repins, M. A. Contreras, B. Egaas, C. DeHart, J. Scharf, C. L. Perkins, B. To, and R. Noufi, 19.9%-efficient ZnO/CdS/CuInGaSe$_2$ solar cell with 81.2% fill factor. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, 16(3):235–239, February 2008
- ^ "Small Times Magazine announces Best of Small Tech Awards at leading nanotech business event". Small Times Magazine. 2005-02-11.
- ^ Nano-architected/assembled solar electricity cell Archived 2017-12-01 at the Wayback Machine US Patent 6,852,920, Nanosolar Inc., February 8, 2005
- ^ a b "Printing Solar Cells (in German)" (PDF). Bild der Wissenschaft (Scientific American). 2007-01-10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27.
- ^ "NREL Certifies 15.3% Nanosolar Foil Efficiency". 2009-09-09. Archived from the original on 2010-06-20. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
- ^ "Nanosolar Achieves 17.1% Aperture Efficiency Through Printed CIGS Process". 2011-10-05. Archived from the original on 2011-10-13. Retrieved 2011-12-15.
- ^ a b c d e Tom Cheyney (August 3, 2010). "Exclusive: Nanosolar rising, Part I—One-time thin-film PV lightning rod gets its focus on". PV-Tech.org. Archived from the original on August 6, 2010.
- ^ Nanosolar Completes Panel Factory, Commences Serial Production Archived 2011-01-04 at the Wayback Machine from Nanosolar Blog
- ^ a b "Who will deliver on the promise of the leading thin-film recipe for converting sunlight into electricity?". Photon International. July 2010. pp. 134–143.
- ^ Tom Cheyney (August 6, 2010). "Exclusive: Nanosolar rising, Part II—The 'I' in CIGS also stands for thin-film PV innovation". PV-Tech.org. Archived from the original on August 14, 2010.
- ^ Nanocomponents Archived 2008-01-19 at the Wayback Machine from Nanosolar website
- ^ Nanoparticle Ink Archived 2008-01-19 at the Wayback Machine from Nanosolar website
- ^ Coated nanoparticles and quantum dots for solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cells Archived 2017-08-05 at the Wayback Machine US Patent 7,306,823, Nanosolar Inc., December 11, 2007
- San Jose Mercury News. 2006-06-21. Archivedfrom the original on 2006-07-16. Retrieved 2006-08-05.
- ^ "Retail Price Summary". solarbuzz.com. 2012-03-01. Archived from the original on 2012-06-27. Retrieved 2012-06-07.
- ^ Designed To Last Archived 2007-11-19 at the Wayback Machine from Nanosolar website