New Dow Chemical Coating Speeds Up Solar Assembly-Line
Not every breakthrough in the solar industry comes from efficiency gains from esoteric new Silicon Valley start-ups (though these are being catapulted by the recent funding bonanza) and university labs.
Some come from understanding that half the cost of a solar installation is just the cost of getting boots up on your roof, like for any other roofing job. One block off the grid reduces that cost by aggregating homeowners into groups to go solar together.
Some breakthroughs come when utility-scale solar companies forge innovative partnerships with housing developers rather than keep on battling NIMBY transmission costs, as BrightSource just did to meet its contract with PG&E for RPS solar power.
Others are starting to happen as titans of industry like Dow Chemical gear up to develop the little extras that smooth the assembly line process to speed up production-lines.
Because in manufacturing, assembly-line efficiency determines production costs:
