Tutorial on solar energy

Summary form only given. The solar industry has grown at an astonishingly high rate over the past decade. This growth has been both in what one could consider the “traditional” areas such as flat panel crystalline silicon arrays, as well as in “new” technologies such as thin film CdTe arrays on glass. We will review some of the major discoveries of the past and trace how the industry came to be where it is today. We will also provide an overview of some of the latest discoveries in the field and what are the current hot areas of interest. Finally, we will discuss what these current trends industry may hold for the future, both technically and from a business perspective for this very rapidly developing field.