This will enable the solar industry to achieve cost parity with traditional electricity – and quickly.

Applied Materials said the thin film full production lines it’s making will allow thin film solar panels to reach $1 per watt, the average cost most pay for nonrenewable power supplies now, by 2010.

Thin film solar panels don’t use as much silicon, like traditional solar pv cells, so they’re far cheaper to manufacture. Instead the solar panels are coated with a very thin film of silicon a far cheaper and less energy-intensive process than silicon photovoltaics.

But that $1 per watt price also relies on major cost decreases in solar materials and installation and a major increase in production and efficiencies of the thin film solar panels.

Christopher Beitel, general manager of the California-based company said the cost and size reductions using nanotechnology needed to make the cost of solar panels on par with today’s grid prices is possible. As an example, he said, look at the Apple Ipod.

"A 4 gigabyte Apple Ipod", he said, "would have cost $3 billion 40 years ago and would have taken up the entire floor of the Moscone Center conference center. Now the handheld music player retails for $150."

“All we have to do for solar is cut the cost in half,” he said.

Applied Materials, which has a $24 billion market cap, said it’s sold about 10 of its new production lines capable of producing 60-75 megawatts of power or 300,000 panels per year.

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