cis

Next-gen solar tech makes big leagues

A solar farm in California will be the largest to use an emerging type of thin-film solar technology, another competitive force bringing down the price of solar.

Japan-based Solar Frontier will supply solar panels built with solar cells that use a combination of copper, indium, and selenide. The project, which will produce 150 megawatts at peak times, will be in Kearn County, California and is expected to be completed next June.

Project developer Enxco and Solar Frontier said the thin-film technology has a favorable year-round energy production, not only during its peak output. The technology is "compelling to major … Read more

Escort Entourage CIS silently tracks your wheels

Escort, a company most often associated with radar detectors, has collaborated with Blackline GPS to create a vehicle tracking system that lets drivers keep tabs on their rides via the internet. Known as the Escort Entourage CIS, this device is hidden in your vehicle where it monitors its GPS coordinates and intermittently checks in via a GSM/GPRS cellular connection. If something goes amiss, the owner is notified via SMS, e-mail, or a BlackBerry phone application.

With the CIS installed in our CNET test vehicle, we staged a few mock thefts to see how the device would help us to … Read more

Japanese Shell subsidiary plans solar-panel plant

Corrected July 9 at 6 p.m. PDT: This blog initially stated that CIS reached an efficiency of 20 percent. The studies showing that efficiency used a higher light concentration than the studies of CIGS efficiency. When comparing the two, CIS has a lower efficiency of around 15 percent.

Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary Showa Shell Sekiyu, Japan's fifth-largest oil refiner, plans to invest 100 billion yen, or about $938 million, in a solar-panel megaplant, according to AFP.

The planned factory will produce panels with the cumulative annual capacity to produce 1 gigawatt of power, equivalent to that of a … Read more