Latest from Mag

Plenty of executive appointments over the past two weeks. Here’s Electrical Marketing’s expanded coverage of personnel changes in the electrical market.
Dec. 21, 2012
Wire man John Pasqual and lighting rep Jack Melnick
Dec. 21, 2012
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Electrical product prices remained on their flat trend, showing no change from October and little change in almost all major product categories.
Dec. 21, 2012
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Privately-owned housing starts in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 861,000, 3% below the revised October estimate, but 21.6% above the Nov. 2011 rate.
Dec. 21, 2012
Dec. 21, 2012
Veteran reps form new agency in Raleigh; WinWholesale buys Lloyd Graves in Texas; United Electric Supply expands through acquisition; and more.
Dec. 21, 2012
W.W. Grainger Inc., Lake Forest, Ill., announced plans to purchase Techni-Tool Inc., Worcester, Pa., a 200-plus employee distributor supplying customers in the cable television...
Dec. 21, 2012
Kaman Industrial Technologies (KIT), the industrial distribution business Kaman Corp., Bloomfield, Conn., has built up in recent acquisitions of Minarik, Zeller Electric and others...
Dec. 21, 2012
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg offered an update on the city’s plans to renovate its infrastructure to withstand future storms.
Dec. 7, 2012

The $1-per-watt-solar panel?

Everyone loves the idea of converting the sun’s rays into electricity, but no one really wants to pay the $3-per-watt that it costs to produce.
Jan. 10, 2008
2 min read

Everyone loves the idea of converting the sun’s rays into electricity, but no one really wants to pay the $3-per-watt that it costs to produce. The folks at Nanosolar Inc., San Jose, Calif., think they have brought the price down to $1-per-watt with their thin-film solar panels that recently went into production. NanoSolar’s products have attracted the interest of the entire green industry, and a group of high-profile investors, including Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder.

Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen said his panels, which began shipping last month, make the company, “the world’s lowest-cost solar panel and the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as 99 cents a watt” and that the panels deliver five times the current of any other thin-film panels.

Nanosolar has figured out how to print solar cells on thin sheets of aluminum with a printing press. Its technology is much more efficient than the other technologies because it doesn’t waste as much material in the manufacturing process. Popular Science magazine likes the panels, too, and last year awarded Nanosolar with its “Top Innovation of the Year Award.” Also in the winner’s circle in this always-interesting awards competition was another electrical product — the EverLED by leddynamics, an LED lamps that fits in existing fluorescent sockets.