It’s no secret anymore that Solyndra makes cylinders covered with flexible, thin solar cells. But I guess few know that Solyndra’s tube solar panels can also be used in agriculture as shades in greenhouses.
The sunlight passes through the thin solar panels, offering diffused lighting, and at the same time produces energy for use in anything from lighting heating later in the night.
“We are pioneering this new agricultural solar solution in Italy, where extensive shaded agriculture operations combined with strong insolation and a favorable feed-in tariff are driving strong interest and demand,” Clemens Jargon, the president of Solyndra in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, said in a statement.
Solyndra received a $535 million loan guarantee from the DoE and raised more than $1 bln from private investors, after last’s year budget shrinkage that forced them into closing one of their more expensive production plants.
European and Chinese competitors are thus saying their word on the US market, but with some government help and some ingenuity they’ll have to cut their prices and still keep quality at the same level – and that is only good news for the end consumer.
[via cnet]
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