Crystalline Solar Cells Get $9.5 Million
Posted by Srikant Rajan | # |
12:20:47 pm on August 5, 2008

Yet another solar startup has plans to unveil the “ god" “ of solar cells.Wakonda Technologies has secured $9.5 million to pursue the development of solar power.Wakonda plans to advance crystalline solar technology to produce cells that offer  30 % energy conversion efficiency(yes that is three and zero kind!)Essentially ,  Wakonda plans to use the crystals used in high end satellites , strip them down and put them back together using inexpensive materials.Thus maintaining the performance level and cutting down the costs significantly.Wakonda an NREL award recipient , describes this technology as “ virtual single crystal (that) uses a proprietary surface treatment that allows a low cost, commercial metal foil to simulate an expensive single crystal wafer “

Most of the money in the market is being directed towards thin film solar cells that are inexpensive , but low on efficiency.Another technology is the concentrated solar power technology which has slowly been gaining momentum.However Wakonda’s approach aims at a sizable improvement in efficiency ( not just a couple of points ) and may just result in a breakthrough.

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