Origin of solar photovoltaic technology: California, USA

What many people expected, the United States began to care about the California solar photovoltaic (photovoltaic) technology of the time can be traced back to the beginning of the twentieth Century, at that time, South California has tens of thousands of residential use of the "California sunshine" to provide heat for domestic water heater.

The timing of the rapid advance to twenty-first Century, the promotion of solar energy projects in California and government incentives, is the birth of the local solar photovoltaic industry.

In 90s, the market only a few grid connected solar photovoltaic (grid-connected) system, until 1998, emerging renewable energy (Renewables) and the self generation plan that will make the market more attention. The next 10 years, California has made progress in promoting solar energy in 2007, the California government fully supports the plan of new solar photovoltaic, local grid connected power capacity to about 0.5GW.

In January 2006, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) established the California solar plan, the plan will be originally held by the California Energy Commission, responsible for the existing residential consumption of renewable energy purchase plan, transferred to CPUC's public utilities companies. The incentive to buy back the energy plan in January 2007, mainly aimed at the production capacity of renewable energy systems below 1MW, estimated in the next 10 years will be able to create a $3 billion 300 million market.

Since 2007, California Energy Commission has activated a budget of $400 million, the goal is to install solar equipment in new residential. This is from the California Energy Commission will inject funds in 2007~2011 renewable energy project. The project, also known as the new solar residential partnership program, will focus on a new generation of solar residential buildings.

With the United States national initiative to focus more on renewable energy, the next 10 years, California is expected to be the leading position in the field of solar photovoltaic.

California solar photovoltaic technology hub

Not only to provide adequate sunlight, California offers a series of incentives to help install solar photovoltaic devices. The biggest feature of the earth, is active in the solar photovoltaic field has many companies, these enterprises are promoting the development of solar energy industry, they create revenue, employment opportunities, and promote the development of advanced science and technology.

For example, in 1967, founded in California Materials (Applies) is still leading the innovation technology. The company's recent focus is to provide solutions for amorphous and microcrystalline silicon solar cells.

University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a process for the development of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells. This method of manufacturing at ambient temperature and pressure is likely to contribute to a substantial decline in the cost of solar photovoltaic cells. The process developed by UCLA is likely to eliminate the existing high temperature and vacuum processes, thus achieving a cheaper solar energy.

Intel (Intel) has taken a different approach. The world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturers are seeking ways to improve the efficiency of organic solar energy, the company is working on a new low cost material, this material can withstand a small amount of impurities, without making use of clean room. Intel Yuri Sylvester laboratory scientists earlier in the "Research at Intel" campaign has said, "the biggest problem of this technique is that when the dye or ink to convert sunlight into electrical energy efficiency loss is much higher than the data obtained in the laboratory." Intel is trying to overcome this challenge.

In addition, including Nanosolar, Innovalight, Solarmer and Solyndra, etc., are also in the field of solar photovoltaic, continuous process, materials and design research and development of innovative solutions.

Over the next 10 years, these innovative thin-film technologies will drive the industry to grow. With the average cost per watt solar cells continue to decline, thin film technology will replace the crystalline silicon technology. Estimated in 2019, thin-film solar technology market size will exceed $42 billion.