Message #3 From:
NewsBot Date: October 3, 2006 03:00:00 AM
AKC News Ascent Solar Aims for 5 cents/kWhr Electricity Production from Its Thin-Film Modules
LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTI) (BSX:AKC)announced
today that the Ascent Solar alliance that has been collaborating for
several months in response to President George W. Bush’s
Solar America Initiative, plans to produce an entirely new series of “plug
and play” products for the nation’s
commercial and residential building markets.
Using Ascent Solar’s thin film photovoltaic
(PV) technology on plastics, large photovoltaic modules in roll formats
will be integrated with various construction materials to produce
multiple Building Integrated PV (BIPV) products for commercial and
residential applications. The new “plug-and-play”
module designs should eliminate the vast amount of wires, cables,
connectors, junction boxes, and conduit required in current systems.
Ascent Solar expects that PV system integration will be reduced from
weeks to days for systems as large as 600kW and that, based upon U.S.
Department of Energy cost models, the cost to produce electricity will
be reduced from 20¢/kWhr to 5¢/kWhr.
Led by Ascent Solar, the alliance developing the new BIPV products and
associated manufacturing processes consists of leaders from academia,
industry, and government laboratories, including:
PERMACITY SOLAR
Institute of Energy Conversion (University of Delaware)
Colorado School of Mines
University of Texas
ITN Energy Systems
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy)
IBIS Associates
Ascent Solar President and CEO Matthew Foster states, “The
potential to create enormous demand in the market for PV generated
electricity is real. As the cost of solar generated electricity
approaches that of fossil fuel generated power, BIPV growth could expand
exponentially. The Solar America timeline and cost targets show the
potential for this happening as early as 2010. Our vision is to see the
day when BIPV will become pervasive as a building and construction
material much like plywood is today and become affordable for all in
need of low cost electricity from a natural resource that is free,
abundant, and available to everyone.”
The key to realizing the day when low cost PV systems produce
electricity more cost effectively than fossil fuels is low cost
manufacturing of modules and system components. Ascent Solar plans to
employ manufacturing methodologies similar to the successes in the
semiconductor industry by scaling manufacturing equipment and processes
to run faster and wider. Monolithic integration of cells into modules
during manufacturing should completely eliminate the entire back-end
assembly operation of today. Ascent Solar estimates that the new BIPV
roll formats can offer reductions in the number of discrete modules by
as much as 90% for a typical PV system deployment, and provide
flexibility to cover up to 35% more area. When combined with the “plug
and play” product improvements, the
multiplying effect on cost should be remarkable.
Ascent Solar is currently developing a 1.5MW production line for
terrestrial, space and near-space applications. This production capacity
will produce prototypes of the new products and demonstrate the large
area manufacturing process. The wide web manufacturing processes are
expected to become the production baseline for future manufacturing
scale up to 100MW capacities, which are currently envisioned to begin by
2010.
To accelerate these new product and manufacturing innovations, Ascent
Solar submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy on October
2, 2006, in response to the Solar America Initiative. Announcement of
awards to as many as 15-20 industry teams are anticipated by year end.
About Ascent Solar Technologies:
Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. is a developer of state-of-the-art,
thin-film photovoltaic materials and modules and is located in
Littleton, Colorado. Please visit our website for additional information
at www.ascentsolar.com.
Statements in this press release that are not statements of historical
or current fact constitute "forward-looking statements." Such
forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other unknown factors that could cause the Company's
actual operating results to be materially different from any historical
results or from any future results expresses or implied by such
forward-looking statements. In addition to statements that explicitly
describe these risks and uncertainties, readers are urged to consider
statements that contain terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects,"
"expect," "intends," "intend," "anticipate," "anticipates," "plans,"
"plan," to be uncertain and forward-looking. The forward-looking
statements contained herein are also subject generally to other risks
and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the Company's
filings with Securities and Exchange Commission.
