Company called Solyndra has invented circular photovoltaic panels. They are seems to be more efficient than traditional solar PV panels and they are easier and cheeper to install too.
We know that usually CIGS are not as efficient as photovoltaic systems based on silicon cells. But they are more and more popular, quite a few companies [...]

Konarka’s advanced photovoltaic technology started with the work of the late Dr. Sukant Tripathy, an internationally known polymer materials scientist, provost at UMASS Lowell and founder of the Plastic Innovation Center and Dr. Alan Heeger, Konarka’s chief scientist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2000. The ground-breaking discoveries from both founding scientists [...]

Signet Solar expects to begin commercial production of thin-film solar panels by the end of this month, a company executive told Greentch Media this week.
Signet plans to begin shipping its films to commercial customers this month and to ramp up its production to full capacity in the next two months,
Signet Solar fabricated the industry’s first [...]

Morgan Solar - a company which might have the key for the brigh future. For of us, small users of solar panels. They expecting to divide the costs of fabrication by 4 !!! That’s simply amazing. The magic is the Light-guide Solar Optic (LSO). It’s made of acrylic that concentrates sunlight 750 times and redirects [...]

After Nanosolar’s investment of $300 milion this week it is SoloPower which is raising almost $200 million to speed up manufacturing of its thin-film solar cells.
SoloPower is based in San Jose, California. The company makes solar cells from CIGS, which is a combination of copper, indium, gallium, and selenide which a number of solar companies [...]

I found it googling - this PDF from Nanosolar’s website explaining actually the progress the firm is making developping hte CIGS technology. It’s called ” High-performance Thin-film photovoltaics using Low-cost process technology “. The paper explaining that the CIGS can can deliver sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiencies of 19.5%. The paper then explains the different fabrication process [...]

Nanosolar to Accelerate Production

One of the companies at the forefront of the fight to make thin-film solar viable is Nanosolar, and they just announced some good news on their blog. They were always well capitalized, but they raised $300 million more to accelerate the expansion of their production capability, bringing their total funding to about [...]

Masdar invests US$230 million into German plant to produce thin film PV modules. The factory will be opened in third quarter 2009, the plant has a targeted annual production capacity of 70MW, and will create more than 180 green jobs. It will produce the world’s largest (5.7 sqauare metres) and most powerful PV modules, on [...]

I came to this article about the Sunflower’s Fresnel lens . Those lens concentrates sunlight more than 1,000 times, enabling cheaper electricity than traditional photovoltaics. The system is self-powered.
Technical specifications:

200-watt system
features trackers that shift with the sun’s location, as well as a controller and communications system.
The low-slung Sunflower is built to withstand winds, and it [...]

Several months back Sharp, the biggest maker of solar panels in the world, has invested 72 billion Yen (~$725 million) into a plant that will make thin film solar cells in Sakai, in the Osaka prefecture. The production will start in March of 2010, with an initial annual capacity of 480 megawatts, bringing Sharp’s total [...]