Amrith Ramkumar of The Wall Street Journal reports that one of the most prominent investors in U.S. solar manufacturing will use new technology to cut costs which will help it become more competitive with China. He writes:
The biggest investor in U.S. solar manufacturing is embracing a new technology that reduces the cost of producing the panels, potentially bolstering efforts to build a supply chain outside of China for an industry crucial to the energy transition.
The new technology comes from an Israeli startup that promises to simplify one of the most cumbersome steps in solar manufacturing and cut costs by reducing the amount of silver needed to capture sunlight on the panels.
The startup, called Lumet, is the brainchild of Benny Landa, who founded the company that developed the first digital printing press. That company was sold to HP for $830 million in the early 2000s. Lumet is working with Bank of America to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming months, Landa said. […]
Qcells has been testing Lumet’s process for nine months and talking to the company for two years. Qcells declined to provide specifics on when it would deploy the technology at specific factories and the overall cost reductions it is targeting.
Its $2.5 billion Georgia supply-chain effort is on track to be completed by the end of the year and will supply big customers including Microsoft. Expanded module assembly is up and running, with ingot and wafer production expected to start by September and cell production to follow by December, Merfeld said.
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