Thin-film solar technology has generated a storm of interest in recent years. That's because advocates have ordained thin-film—which can be applied on glass, metal or flexible plastic and integrated with building materials—as the inevitable solar star of the future.
But 1366 Technologies, a startup spun out of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes traditional silicon-based photovoltaic cells still show great promise. The company talks about creating electricity cheaper than coal. 1366's ambitions, however, haven’t made it out of the lab.
That hasn't slowed the Lexington, Massachusetts, startup, which on Thursday announced a $12.4 million first round of venture funding.
“We are interested in finding an improvement for the dominant technology we have today,” 1366 President Frank van Mierlo said in reference to silicon-based solar cells.
The startup said it will drive down costs by using a new cell architecture to increase by up to 25 percent cell efficiency, a measure of how much of the sun’s light is converted to electricity. This new architecture, developed at MIT and licensed to 1366, improves surface texture and metallization, the company said.
Mr. Mierlo also expects to reduce cell costs by licensing the technology to other manufacturers.
“You need to achieve volume at the equipment supplier in order to get costs down,” he said. “Fellow solar producers are not competitors. Our competition is coal.”
All told, 1366 believes it will be able to produce solar cells for $1 per watt, less than 50 percent of the average production costs today, said Mr. Mierlo. By 2012 he believes its cells will produce electricity cheaper than coal, the largest source of power today.
But first 1366 will need to prove its claims in the real world. So far the startup only has shown its new architecture works in the lab—and even that wasn’t on full-size cells, Mr. Mierlo acknowledged. The company aims to open a pilot plant by the end of the summer. 1366 hopes to commercialize its cells by 2010.
North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners co-led the funding round. MIT professor Ely Sachs founded 1366 and will take a leave of absence from the university to help build the company. He will serve as its chief technology officer.