Chipmaker sees solar cell revolution
Process lowers efficiency but slashes production cost
AMSTERDAM, Oct. 2 — Promising a revolution in solar cells, Europe’s largest semiconductor maker says it has discovered ways to generate electricity twenty times cheaper than today’s solar panels. French-Italian chip maker STMicroelectronics said it expects to have the first stable prototypes by the end of 2004.
ST expects cheaper organic materials such as plastics to bring down the price of producing energy. Over a typical 20-year life span of a solar cell, a single produced watt should cost as little as $0.20, compared with the current $4.
The new solar cells would even be able to compete with electricity generated by burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas, which costs about $0.40 per watt, said Salvo Coffa, who heads ST’s solar research group.
“This would revolutionize the field of solar energy generation,” he said.
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