According to a new study conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The average installed costs for photovoltaic cells (in real 2007 dollars) went down from $10.50-per-watt in 1998, to $7.60-per-watt in 2007.

What’s most amazing about this report is that it appears to validate a whole slew of state and local solar initiatives. The researchers found that—despite the many, many reported advances to solar cell efficiency—most of the savings during this nine year period came from reductions to installation and external hardware costs.

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Sun Well Solar—a subsidiary of the notoriously poor CD and DVD manufacturer, CMC Magnetics—has announced today that it is one month ahead of schedule in the ramp-up of its new photovoltaic production line.

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A US-based company has successfully tested a revolutionary solar panel that is expected to cut the costs of photovoltaic solar power generation by more than 50 per cent, and herald a new era of improved efficiency and lower production costs of solar energy globally.

The panel, known as the Alubond Solar Collector Panel (SCP), was created by American Building Technologies, a subsidiary of the UAE-based multinational group Mulk Holdings. Commenting on the breakthrough, a spokesman for Mulk said, “We hope the success of this project will lead to an upsurge in the development of more solar energy plants, which will not only lessen the strain on existing energy resources, but also severely reduce the pollution levels that are currently witnessed in power generation.”

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Next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is shaping up to be an interesting event. A few days ago, we reported that Energizer plans on debuting its solar-powered battery charger at the show. Now LG has announced the CES debut of its sunlight-illuminated 14.1 inch LCD notebook panel.

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Solar PV manufacturer Oerlikon Solar has pioneered a new thin film solar technology process, which it claims has made its solar cells 7 per cent efficient - a 16 per cent energy improvement over its previous technology. The advance has led to a 50 per cent increase in the capacity of its thin film solar fabrication plant.

So, why is this important? Well, thin film cells are typically a lot cheaper to produce than more common silicon solar cells, but often suffer from significantly lower conversion efficiencies. Oerlikon’s breakthrough moves us a lot closer to the day when thin film becomes more cost-effective than silicon-based panels - which could mean a dramatic rise in the adoption of solar power in homes and businesses.

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Over the past couple days, I've been hearing about a new charger, the Freeloader, that can power every gadget under, well, the sun. One of the problems associated with earlier chargers (you can see a review I did of one a year ago here) is that they're often lacking in the compatibility department. That, or you need to purchase additional dongles to use with your iPod or specific brand of phone.

The Freeloader is different because a.) it's cheap and b.) it comes with nearly everything you need to power everything you have. Sticking one of these in your backpack, glove compartment, or even as part of an emergency kit would probably serve the best purpose. According to the website, once charged this thing can power an iPod for 18 hours, a cell phone for 44 hours, PSP for 2.5 hours, a PDA for 22 hours, and much more. The Freeloader can be fully charged in as little as five hours via the sun or three hours over USB. It will then hold its charge for about three months.

ShinyShiny has a great video review of the product. You can also visit the official site for more information and ordering options. I'd encourage everyone to give solar chargers a try. You might not use them daily, but in tight situations when you need power most, their value is priceless.