USA . Renewables
Solar electricity start-up company Solaricx, located in California, is reported to have oversubscribed heavily on its $1 million launch on the back of several core patents protecting a revolutionary and robust kind of thick film silicon wafer that the company says can deliver a 21% conversion efficiency at low cost and in large quantities. The technical development firm is attacking the core cost of pv, the cost of the wafer, currently running at around 50% of the pv module.
•A soon to be published report from Business Communications Co suggests that the world wide thick film market, which includes solar pv devices, will grow to $30 billion by 2008. Solar pv currently accounts for about 13.3% of this and is forecast to grow at a very fast pace during the next four to five years, driven by increasing demand in rural areas and stringent environmental regulations in many developed countries.