This week i was lucky enough to notice that WTVS, my local PBS station had scheduled a Nova, local programming and a Scientific Amerian Frontiers episode, all focused on solar energy.  There is a website on the PBS site devoted to: Nova: “Saved by the Sun”.  This special walks you thru the solar industry from it’s start in the oil crisis of the 1970’s thru today where it’s being debated as to whether it is a partial or complete solution to our global warming problems.  You see the US’s first and only powerplant using solar thermal heat (located in Kramer Junction, CA) to run electric turbines and the latest in solar technology today.

A number of experts try to rain on my solar parade by claiming that solar is a partial solution, a solution that only works during “sunny days” or a “solution for rich people”.  Most of this rhetoric is a bunch of….. compost. Sure the sun doesn’t shine at night, so we use the solar electricity during the daylight to make hydrogen gas to fuel traditional style generators at night.  Water can be pump up hill into reseviors using solar electricity and run back downhill to create hydroelectric power during dark parts of the day.  My local station went onto to discuss expansion with United Solar Ovonics, part of ECD the home of Detroit’s favorite Sun: Stan Ovshinsky, with it’s CEO.  The plan is to quintuple, production of their flexible solar electric modules to 300 megawatts by 2009.  This is good news for solar power and good news for the world.

The final program of the evening, featured Alan Alda spending time with Stan Ovshinsky and learning about Ovonics panels and it’s Solid Hydrogen storage system.  It seems that while United Solar’s panels are not the most effective cells in high sunlight conditions, they do produce electricity from the sun, even in rain and cloudy weather.  Best of all, they’re smaller, thinner, lighter and more flexible than stand panels and as Ovshinsky demoed, they can produce electricity with a dozen holes drilled through a 2 sq ft panel of the material.  With Germany being the leading solar market in the world, it’s certainly possible that places like metro Detroit, with ECD inc. leading the way, can lead solar adoption in the US.  Solar Cells that work in gray days, what a perfect solution from a company that’s headquartered in the midwest.

Kyocera announced a plan to double their Solar Panel production by 2011.  The $250 Million investment will increase annual capacity from 240 megawatts of panels annually to 500 million megawatts in the next three years.  Eventhough the plant ran at 75% of capacity due to a shortage of of silicon wafers, used to manufature photovoltaices and as the bases for chips.  This shortage is expect to end in 2008.

The increase in production in the next couple of years has been widely anticipated for a couple of years as a result of expansion by silcon wafer suppliers to meet rapidly increasing demand. While it’s clear that the sales of panels will increase, it’ unclear if the increased supply will help reduce the street price. It’s my opinion, that demand will outstrip capacity until the majority of buildings worldwide are outfitted with panels.  The question isn’t whether to use solar panels, the only question is when is energy payback rate is high enough

Last week 2 german solar manufacturers opened US offices, with a goal of participating in the US market. The first to announce, SolarMarkt, of Freiburg Germany: A subsidiary based in Oakland California to help bring there solar cell products to the US.  The second German solar company to announce a new US presence, CENTROSOLAR from Munich will establish a subsidiary based in Phoenix Arizona, to mark its entry into the US market.

The market for photo electric generation is rapidly expanding and even accelerating as fear of both global warming and rising prices for hydrocarbon fuel sources, combines with expanded and improved manufacturing to spur growth in demand.

The Germans are Coming - Welcome to America, come soak in the sun.

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.