For anyone into Photovoltaics and from the midwest, it’s not surprising to hear that there is a solar soul in Detroit.  The Solar Soul of Detroit is none other than Stan Ovshinsky, founder and leader(he recently stepped down as president) of Engery Conversion Devices, now Ovonics of Rochester Michigan. Today Ovonics and Ovshinsky are focused on battery, fuel cell and hydrogen storage technology.

Energy Conversion Devices was once, best known as the company that built a nearly $1 billion solar panel manufacturing for a consortium of oil companies, who later abandoned the project, leaving ECD as sole owner of this new breakthru for manuafacturing an “endless” ribbon of flexible solar panels, at the lowest prices yet.

 Less well know is that Ovshinsky patented the materials and process of applying the photosensitive metalic coatings used in laser printer drum to capture output, collect toner and deposit onto the paper where heat fuses the toner and paper. This technology was licensed by Canon Corp. and used to create the first cartridge based laser printer offered to consumers, in the early 1980s.

Though originally from Akron Ohio, Stan Ovshinksy, now 85, never finished school and was trained as a machinist and earned his first patent in that field.  Since then he’s become a force in materials, electricity and more.  Britain’s Economist Magazine asked if he was “The Edison of Our Age”.  He is the Solar Soul of Detroit.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 9:51 am and is filed under Solar Commerce, Solar Electricity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.