Solar Power Cells, Hot Water, Energy, Collectors

New, Unconventional Solar Technologies To Watch

01.01.70

Some people fear that the current crop of solar technologies that are more or less mainstream will be reaching the end of their development soon, in the sense that most of the improvements that can be had from process and product innovations have already occurred.

We're not so sure about that, since in the midst of probably the worst glut the industry has ever experienced, big new companies like Foxconn ( FXTCF.PK ) are still entering the field. Clearly they think they can undercut existing producers on the basis of their vast process experience in similar technology (semiconductors) -- so who are we to differ?

However, present product and process technologies are likely to have reaped the most low-hanging fruit already. The steady progress comes from three main sources:

The first represents product enhancements and the second two are familiar production process efficiencies. The latter of these is simply the familiar experience curve, an empirical relationship that holds for many production processes and which show unit cost to decline with cummulative output. Doing things over and over again makes persons better at it, and the same holds for companies.

Source: Seeking Alpha