Companies develop thin, flexible solar panels

• Investors along Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park are pouring money into solar nanotech startups, hoping that thinking small will translate into big profits.
• Both inventors and investors are betting that flexible sheets of tiny solar cells used to harness the sun's strength will ultimately provide a cheaper, more efficient source of energy than the current smorgasbord of alternative and fossil fuels.
• These rolls, the companies say, will be able to provide energy for prices as low as the electricity currently provided by utilities, which averages $1 per watt.
• Other uses of nanotechnology foreseen by Konarka, Nanosolar and Nanosys include form-fitting plastic batteries for electronic devices like cell phones and laptops.
• While all three companies provide prototypes for large corporate research labs and government agencies, company representatives and investors are reticent to predict when nanotechnology-powered solar systems will be commercially available.
• Industry watchers, however, say that achieving mass production of these products may take five years or longer.
• Venture capitalist excitement for these new technologies reflects growth in the solar energy market as whole, say industry experts.
• "The technology is maturing, and the industry is maturing.
• The Energy Foundation report also says that solar energy could furnish much of the nation's electricity if available residential and commercial rooftops were fully utilized.
• They (venture capitalists) see the growth and the possibilities," she said.
• "It took 20 to 25 years to commercialize (conventional) photovoltaics," she said.
• High production costs are among the reasons solar energy hasn't become a major source of electricity.
• Each printed nanostructure solar cell would act as an autonomous solar collector, and sheets of these products would have more surface area to gather light than conventional photovoltaic cells.
• The companies also say that the printed rolls of solar cells would be lighter, more resilient and flexible than silicon photovoltaics.