How Elon Musk’s Super-Efficient Rooftop Panels Will Help US Solar Thrive
BRIAN MERCHANT
SENIOR EDITOR
October 3, 2015 // 10:30 AM EST
motherboard.vice.com
SolarCity, the Elon Musk-chaired clean energy company, says it’s about to start mass-manufacturing “the world’s most efficient rooftop solar panel.” Naturally, the combination of keyphrases “Elon Musk,” “World’s Most,” and “Solar Panels” have set the internet aflutter—and, for once, it’s probably warranted.
According to the company, the new panel “generates more power per square foot and harvests more energy over a year than any other rooftop panel in production, and will be the highest volume solar panel manufactured in the Western Hemisphere.” While those panels may or may not be “the world’s most efficient”—that distinction is more important for drawing headlines, anyway—it’s undoubtedly important news that the company plans on rolling out a major domestic solar panel manufacturing effort to produce them.
According to SolarCity, a massive, solar manufacturing plant (pictured above) is under construction in Buffalo, New York. But production will begin on the super-efficient panels, which were designed by Silevo, a company acquired by SolarCity, in Fresno, California next month. In an email, co-founder Lydon Rive told me me that “by making its own solar panels, the company will bring down system costs by 15 to 20 cents a watt.”
It is indeed a fairly big deal..... |
