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Are Solar Panels Going To 300 Watts Soon?
Posted by admin | Posted in Solar Energy | Posted on 05-09-2010
www.solardave.com This is my 2nd video interview with John Shaw Project Engineer Bella Energy of out of Louisville Colorado. SolarDave: Are Solar Panels Going To 300 Watts Soon? John Shaw: Absolutely, any manufacturer can do that right now. You shouldn’t really look at how many watts a panel has – rather how many watts per square foot can be attained. Behind you is a Sanyo 200, if you increase the foot print of that panel by 50% it is a 300 watt panel. The reality is what you need to be looking at to measure the level of progress of the technology is how many watts per square foot. Instead of thinking will there ever be a 300 watt panel – surely there will be even next year. To get at the point of your question is do you ever think we will be ever to achieve a 300 watt panel in 15 square feet? And yes, I do. Right now standard efficiency panels are in the ballpark of about 12 watts per square foot, it ranges from 10 to 13. Standard efficiency panels Evergreens, Sharps, Kyocera, Shot (?), Suntech etc. Keep in mind this is the residential affordable panels, NASA works with panels that are about 30 watts per square foot but you are talking a million bucks a panel. Then there are high efficiency panels of the ones we know of are SunPower and Sanyo. And Sunpower and Sanyo are approximately 15 watts per square foot. Both are very good products. Sanyo I believe has a little bit of an edge because they has an amorphous or thin film rap around the silicon cell which allows them to …
