Quantum Materials Corp. (fka QTMM)

[ih8aloss]

2nd article talks about the solar antennas and improving efficiency. This article is a good summary of the solar arena.
FYI:
http://www.solarfeeds.com/the-green-light-distrikt-/14365-flexible-solar-awesome-but-not-practical?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+solarfeed+%28Solar+Feeds%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

Flexible Solar: Awesome, But Not Practical.Wednesday, 22 September 2010 The Green Light Distrikt .One contract I’m working on wanted me to develop “flexible” solar panels. When I asked what qualities are important to the project, none of them included mechanical flexibility. In finding a design solution for this customer, I learned that flexibility is an attribute people like the thought of, but may not really need.

Flexible solar panels are like the toy at the bottom of a cereal box. I get excited about the thought of playing with them. I imagine bending, rolling and unrolling them, showing them to my friends, or even throwing them over my shoulder like a cape and running around while I power batteries. The opportunities are truly limitless.

But then I look at the price and decide to reach for the generic brand corn flakes solar panel. There is no toy in this box. In fact, there isn’t even a box. It’s just cheap, sometimes energy dense, and usually made in China. Dreams smashed.

Why was I attracted to the flexible panel in the first place?


In all of my encounters in the solar business, the metrics that matter for a solar panel are:

1.Cost—cost of the panel, out of pocket expense?
2.Weight—how portable is it? How easy is it to install?
3.Durability—how rugged is it in the field? Can I attach it to a jack-hammer?
4.Lifetime—what’s the payback period? NPV? IRR?
5.Efficiency—coupled with cost & area to get cost/watt
(other metrics are permutations of the 5 listed above).

It seems that flexibility implies a combination of a few nice attributes: cost, weight, durability. But in reality, no markets ask for this complete set. Take a look at the chart above. Here are the major markets for solar:

1. Utility—projects are financed on NPV and ROI basis. Technology agnostic. Cost per watt driven unless area (land) constrained, which is rare.

2. Residential—similar to 1 but with more concern for upfront cost & out of pocket expense, may be area constrained on smaller rooftops.

3. Commercial—similar to 1 & 2 with niche in BIPV, where aesthetic value may be valued over returns. May be area-constrained on smaller rooftops.

4. Portable power—cars, boats, bikes, efficiency, W/kg, W/area, often area constrained and concerned with durability. Will pay premium for substitution of heavy batteries.

5. Personal power—chargers, bags, efficiency, mechanical toughness, will pay premium to enable usage of electronic devices off-grid. Highly area constrained.

However, there are very few applications where all of these attributes are necessary. Rooftops are designed to withstand the weight of a traditional glass panel, while people buying portable laptop chargers don’t really care about their generated cost per watt. They just want to use their laptop on a jobsite in rural Africa (yes we’re always price sensitive, but not as much as other markets).

“Yes but installation costs are lower when you can just roll them on the roof” you may say?

I would argue that cost savings comes from eliminating racking systems, not the act of rolling. Flat, rigid, lightweight panels can be laid out in the same way at very similar cost. The bottom line is that a rollable form-factor offers a low value-add.

What’s the opportunity?

There’s a disconnect between what markets want and manufacturers deliver. We’re seeing low-efficiency, flexible panels going into BIPV markets (where cost still matters along with aesthetic), and portable/personal power markets (where efficiency matters most).

These thin film efficiencies are increasing (see Nanosolar, Unisolar, & Global Solar), but panel lifetimes will need to be proven before financiers will risk 20 year returns on a technology with little value-add over Kyocera or Sharp’s Silicon or First Solar’s CdTe panels.

What this leaves is an opportunity for efficiency & cost per watt leaders to come up with clever packaging techniques to make their panels lighter and foldable so they can penetrate portable and personal power markets.
I look forward to sharing my solutions to this space and the status of the project once it is publicly available.




2nd article
http://www.solarfeeds.com/renewable/14363-glimpsing-the-future-of-solar-?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+solarfeed+%28Solar+Feeds%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

Glimpsing the Future of Solar .Wednesday, 22 September 2010 ReNEWable .One thing I like about being a science writer, and about writing a book about renewable energy, is that I get to talk with (and learn from) some of the smartest people on the planet.

For example, this morning I spoke with Michael Strano, an associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT. After a twenty minute phone call, I came away with nothing less than a glimpse into the future of solar energy.

Strano works with carbon nanotubes–tiny, microns-wide structures that can channel atomic and subatomic particles in ways that have all sorts of industrial and technological applications. I was interested in Strano’s work on using carbon nanotubes to enhance the absorptive power and hence efficiency of solar cells. The science is complex, but in a nutshell in involves using carbon nanotubes as antenna or funnels to attract and channel sunlight in concentrated form onto the semiconducting surface of a solar cell.

The implications of this research are far reaching. One of the holy grails of solar PV research is figuring out ways to make solar cells more powerful and efficient without making them more expensive. Some solutions involve using mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto PV panels or boilers. Strano’s method does essentially the same thing, only without the need for expensive and delicate mirrors.

Carbon nanotubes are relatively easy and inexpensive to make. Large companies like Bayer are not manufacturing them in bulk for all sorts of commercial purposes. PV cells enhanced with carbon nanotubes are still a ways off, but if what Strano was telling me is accurate, they’re coming. And they very might might blaze an entirely new path in solar PV development.

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What if Jabbour finds a way to reach the theoretical efficiency for the solar cells and then finds a way to channel the sunlight in a concentrated form? How high does the efficiency go?

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Could Solterra help Sharp get back on top?

http://www.solarfeeds.com/greentech-media/14345-sharp-gobbles-up-recurrent-energy-for-305m?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+solarfeed+%28Solar+Feeds%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

Sharp Gobbles Up Recurrent Energy for $305M.Tuesday, 21 September 2010 Greentech Media .Sharp today announced it would buy Recurrent Energy, the large solar developer, for $305 million.

Recurrent, which had been shopping itself around since August. will operate as a subsidiary and keep the Recurrent name. Recurrent CEO Arno Harris will continue to run the group.

The deal will effectively bring together two companies in need of strong allies. Sharp is one of the largest and historically strongest solar module makers in the world and Recurrent is one of the largest independent solar power project developers. With Recurrent, Sharp has a group that can bid on solar power projects, and then build them with Sharp modules. Recurrent has a 2 gigawatt product pipeline: that could soak up a lot of modules.

There is no obligation on the part of Recurrent to buy Sharp modules and Recurrent is free to pick the best technology for the job, but one can anticipate the two working together quite a bit. Sharp modules and other high-end modules from companies like Suntech and BP Solar can be quite similar in terms of price and performance: the biggest difference arguably is the name on the box.

First Solar toppled Sharp from the top spot in the solar market in large part by acting as its own developer.

Recurrent, meanwhile, has found itself being forced to bid on projects against developers like First Solar and SunPower who happen to have their own module making capabilties. With Sharp as a parent, Recurrent won't have to worry about access to capital, price gouging or the rare conflicts of interest.


Lots of opportunities are in the making for QTMM and none of it is unrealistic.