December 21, 2010
Ann’s earlier post regarding the accelerating drop in costs in 2009 and 2010 for installed photovoltaic solar energy systems general jibes with the estimates by Emanual Sachs, of 1366 Technologies/MIT. Sachs predicts that “manufacturing innovations in silicon PV will decrease costs by 10% per year through 2020, at which point solar electricity becomes cheaper than coal” (Sachs’ Law).
1366 received a $4 million ARPA-E grant last December and the company recently announced that it had raised another $20 million from investors. It also recently hosted DOE Secretary Chu at its facilities in Massachusetts: