After five years of product development, Nanosolar has shipped its first solar panels priced at $1 a watt, the price at which solar energy gets cheaper than coal.

Panels features include:

• World’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product
• World’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability
• World’s lowest-cost solar panel (as little as $.99/Watt)
• World’s highest-current thin-film solar panel, delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment
• Intensely systems-optimized product with the lowest balance-of-system cost of any thin-film panel

Thin-film solar films are more than 100x thinner than silicon-wafer cells and thus have correspondingly lower materials cost.Combining the materials-cost advantage of thin films with the process cost advantage of Nanosolar's 100x faster process technology leads to the best of both worlds.

Technology Wave	I. Wafer Cells	II. Vacuum-Based Thin-Film-on-Glass	III. Roll-Printed Thin-Film-on-Foil
Process:	Silicon wafer processing	Sputtering, evaporation in a vacuum chamber	Printing in plain air
Process Control:	Fragile wafers	Expensive metrology	Built-in bottom-up reproducibility
Process Yield:	Robust	Fragile	Robust
Materials Utilization:	30%	30-50%	Over 95%
Substrate:	Wafer	Glass	Conductive Foil
Continuous Processing:	No -- wafer handling	No -- glass handling	Yes
Cell Matching:	Yes	No	Yes
Panel Current:	High	Low	High
Energy Payback:	3 years	1.7 years	<>
Throughput/CapEx	1	2-5	10-25

First shipping panels have been shipped for deployment in Eastern Germany.

Popular Science Magazine has awarded Nanosolar's solar electricity technology the top Innovation of the Year 2007.

Nanosolar has already raised $100 million to build a factory, and has secured more than 600,000 feet of manufacturing space.
Worth noting that the company already has orders for the first 18 months of manufacturing capacity.

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Article on nanosolar

SkySails, a German company from Hamburg, is developing wind propulsion systems for cargo ships and superyachts.


The SkySails system consists basically of a fully automated towing kite propulsion connected to the ship via a towing rope.

The planned product range contains towing kite propulsion systems with a nominal propulsion power of up to 5,000 kW (about 6,800 HP).
Most large ships can be easily fitted with the SkySails.

It is used meant to be used offshore, if the wind conditions allow, in addition to the propulsion of the ship’s engine, making it more profitable, safer and independent.
The SkySails system actually improves the ship's behavior at sea significantly.

On annual average fuel costs can be lowered between 10-35% depending on actual wind conditions and actual time deployed. Under optimal wind conditions, fuel consumptions can temporarily be reduced up to 50%.

During tests made on a 800-ton testing ship, it was calculated that fuel savings of up to 1200 liters per day can be made on ships of this size by using only an 80-square-meter towing kite. “Correspondingly, and based on the latest testing results, towing kites with double the surface area can save up to 2400 liters of fuel a day,” as reported by SkySails managing director Stephan Wrage.

Humphreys Yacht Design, together with SkySails, did exhibit the concept for a high-performance hybrid super yacht at this year’s Monaco Yacht Show.
Powered by SkySails, a 40-meter trimaran can reach speeds of up to 18 knots without the help of its main engine, and up to 30 knots with the main engine.
Additionally, with SkySails a shaft-driven generator can be activated, which charges batteries that can supply the main diesel-electric propulsion as needed.
Yacht owners can now sail in a way that is ecologically responsible, without having to sacrifice the comfort they’ve come to enjoy.
And, this type of propulsion provides owners a high degree of security and independence in times of crisis.



The SkySails-System is to be installed on the heavy-lift multi purpose carrier MV "Beluga SkySails".
This 140m long cargo vessel belongs to the Beluga Group, a shipping company in Bremen, and is taking up regular operation in international shipping in early 2008.

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SkySails