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Page added on July 20, 2014
Elon Musk Needs a Very Big Factory for His New Solar Technology
Technology Review has an article on another monster factory being planned by Elon Musk – this one for solar panels rather than battery storage – to support his SolarCity business – Elon Musk Needs a Very Big Factory for His New Solar Technology.
Billionaire, Tesla founder, and private space entrepreneur Elon Musk announced yesterday that Solar City, the solar installation company where he is chairman, plans to acquire a startup called Silevo for $200 million (plus up to $150 million more if the company meets certain goals). And with typical bravado, he also said that the company plans to build a huge factory to produce Silevo’s high-efficiency solar panels, a strategy he claims will make solar power “way cheaper” than power from fossil fuels.Solar City is one of the country’s largest and fastest-growing solar installers, largely as a result of an innovative business model that allows homeowners and businesses to avoid any up-front cost. If its plans pan out, it will also become a major manufacturer of solar panels, with by far the largest factory in the U.S.
The acquisition makes sense given that Silevo’s technology has the potential to reduce the cost of installing solar panels, Solar City’s main business. But the decision to build a huge factory in the U.S. seems daring—especially given the recent failures of other U.S.-based solar manufacturers in the face of competition from Asia. Ultimately, however, Solar City may have little choice—it needs to find ways to reduce costs to keep growing.
Silevo produces solar panels that are roughly 15 to 20 percent more efficient than conventional ones. They incorporate thin films of silicon, which increase efficiency by helping electrons flow more freely out of the material, and they use copper rather than silver electrodes to save costs. Higher efficiency can yield big savings on installation costs, which often exceed the cost of the panels themselves, because fewer panels are needed to generate a given amount of power.
Silevo isn’t the only company to produce high-efficiency solar cells. A version made by Panasonic is just as efficient, and SunPower makes ones that are significantly more so (see “Record-Breaking Solar Cell Points the Way the Cheaper Solar Power”). But Silevo claims it could make its panels as cheaply as conventional ones if it can scale up from its current production capacity of 32 megawatts to the factory Musk has planned, which is expected to produce 1,000 megawatts or more.
12 Comments on "Elon Musk Needs a Very Big Factory for His New Solar Technology"
Plantagenet on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 10:59 am
Elon Musk is a 21st century hero. Hang on a bit longer, Planet Earth—science and technology are coming to the rescue.
GregT on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 11:31 am
Elon Musk is an industrialist entrepreneur. He makes paper money out of exploitation of the Earth’s natural ecosystems, while further contributing to overpopulation, environmental degradation, and pollution. Hang on, Planet Earth isn’t going to take this for much longer, if we don’t get our shit together, she is going to shake us off like flees on a dog.
Jerry McManus on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 11:37 am
Um…, Last time I looked it was science and technology that are pushing Planet Earth over the cliff in the first place.
The solution, if there is one, is really quite simple: Don’t burn anything.
Don’t burn coal, oil, or gas. Not for any reason.
That means no cars, trucks, boats, planes, or trains. No cooked or frozen food, or hot water. And for most people that also means no electricity.
It especially means no giant factories.
Oops! There goes the solar panels and wind turbines. Sorry about that!
JuanP on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 11:38 am
I envy your optimism and positivism, Plant. I believed that for many years, but have lost my faith in science and technology. We will continue using them to destroy the world as fast as we can, like we always have. This is not about lacking scientific knowledge or technological applications of it; this is about human nature and behaviour.
JuanP on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 11:41 am
Jerry, As a lifelong sailor and paddler I take issue to your including boats on that list. Human beings have been paddling, rowing, and sailing for millenia.
GregT on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 11:44 am
You could say I lost my faith in science and progress
You could say I lost my belief in the holy church
You could say I lost my sense of direction
You could say all of this and worse but
If I ever lose my faith in you
There’d be nothing left for me to do
Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world
You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV
You could say I’d lost my belief in our politicians
They all seemed like game show hosts to me
If I ever lose my faith in you
There’d be nothing left for me to do
I could be lost inside their lies without a trace
But every time I close my eyes I see your face
I never saw no miracle of science
That didn’t go from a blessing to a curse
I never saw no military solution
That didn’t always end up as something worse but
Let me say this first
If I ever lose my faith in you
There’d be nothing left for me to do
JuanP on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 11:59 am
Greg, Sting and The Police, in particular, were on my playing list often as a teenager.my girlfriend and I had a great night once with The Police’s drummer, Stewart Copeland, in a small town Argentinean Disco when I was 18. I walked in and sat next to him at the bar without recognizing him, we started talking, I recognized him, and we had a blast for more than 12 hours. We hanged out till noon the next day! Glory days, they’ll pass you by …
louis wu on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 3:12 pm
Science and technology are not the problem.It is the ways we are using them to try to keep a growing economy and population and consumption, etc. We could scale back everything about our lifestyles and maintain usefull tech but then some people couldn’t get unrealistically rich in that type of society.
JuanP on Sun, 20th Jul 2014 4:05 pm
Louis, Because of human nature being what it is, science and technology only enabled us to increase our numbers, resource consumption, and consequent environmental destruction and global pollution.
Without science and technology we would not have been able to use most of the fossil fuels we’ve used and we wouldn’t have anthropogenic global warming and climate change right now. Of course, we wouldn’t be around either because things would have been totally different.
GregT on Mon, 21st Jul 2014 12:04 am
We had everything that we ever needed, but we weren’t satisfied with that. We always wanted more. We found ways to exploit animals, we found ways to exploit the planet, and we found ways to exploit each other, yet we still remain unsatisfied.
Human greed, it is in our nature. It is the never ending desire that will never be fulfilled. Despite our intelligence, our biggest motivator is greed, and it will be our biggest downfall.
We have plenty of science to tell us that we cannot continue down the path that we have chosen, but we ignore it at our own peril. We choose to listen to the science of human exceptionalism and technology. The planet Earth could care less about our science.
The Earth will most likely be here for a very long time, whether we choose to take care of it or not. If we choose to continue not to take care of the Earth, the Earth will continue on without us.
meld on Mon, 21st Jul 2014 2:21 am
plant said – “Elon Musk is a 21st century hero. Hang on a bit longer, Planet Earth—science and technology are coming to the rescue.”
OR!
Jesus Christ is our saviour, pray to the lord and he will rescue us from sin and grant unto us eternal life
See the similarity plant?
Davy on Mon, 21st Jul 2014 7:27 am
Greg, throw in competition with greed and you get a deadly mix. This is what has driven our evolutionary dead end called progress. If a group does not embrace technology they are taken over by those that do. This was in the past. It may well turn out the paradigm shift going on currently of a descent phase as opposed to a growth phase, lower complexity groups will survive and thrive at the expense of those locked in complexity.