| USA Today has written a nice article in which it says that high costs of solar panels have been due to volatile silicon prices, low production volumes and high setup costs, although Suntrek Industries has the best available rates for solar panels in the United States. As we have written often on this website blog, Solar panels generate electricity when photons in sunlight knock loose electrons in silicon, which is the same material used in Personal Computer chips. The silicon is sandwiched between two metal plates and the electrons flow from one to the other.
USA reports that several years ago, SunPower, a unit of Cypress Semiconductor came to realize that the top metal plate was reflecting the sun's rays, cutting efficiency by reducing the percentage of sunlight converted to electricity. So Cypress Semiconductor decided to put both plates beneath the silicon. It now has an industry-high efficiency of 22% vs. an average of 16%, says analyst Dan Ries of Monness, Crespi Hardt & Co. That means fewer solar panels are needed to produce solar power, shaving solar installation costs and making solar energy systems more affordable for homes, which have smaller roofs than most commercial buildings. |