The workhorse of conventional solar power, silicon solar cells, could soon be cheap and efficient enough to beat fossil fuels.
Solar panel prices have plummeted more than 80 percent in recent years, but solar power is still more expensive than fossil-fuel power in most places, and accounts for a tiny fraction of the world’s energy supply. Few people have a better idea of what it will take to make solar compete with fossil fuels than Richard Swanson, who founded SunPower, a major solar company that sells some of the industry’s most efficient solar panels. During SunPower’s almost 30 years in existence, Swanson has seen many types of solar technology come and go. At the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference in Denver this week, he sat down with MIT Technology Review’s Kevin Bullis to talk about where the solar industry is now, and where it needs to go in order to become a major source of electricity.
See full Article: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/528231/three-questions-with-a-solar-pioneer/
Posts
