TWO companies in the US plan to make solar power cheaper by mass-producing solar panels. Amoco, an oil multinational, is joining forces with Enron, a natural gas producer, to build a factory that will produce enough solar devices each year to generate 10 megawatts of electricity.
Amoco/Enron Solar plans to sell amorphous silicon cells to power companies to give them extra generating capacity at times of peak demand.
Harvey Forest, president of Solarex, a solar panel manufacturer owned by Amoco, reckons that if the panels are made in large quantities, the cost of the electricity they produce could fall to 5.5 cents a kilowatt-hour. The US Department of Energy says electricity from coal costs about 2.32 cents/kWh.
