Your humble moderator has spent a lot of time reading scitech articles and many of them have been about the future of solar cells. I’ve read about them for a long, long time and finally something is being done with them. It would be wonderful if we could capture even a small fraction of the energy of the fusion reactor that is Sol, whether by small steps like these solar cells or a Dyson Sphere.

We have to start somewhere though and this is as good a place to start as anywhere.

The CNet website reports:

Well-financed solar start-up Nanosolar on Tuesday said it has started shipping its flexible thin-film solar cells, meeting its own deadline and marking a milestone for alternative solar-cell materials.

On the company’s blog, CEO Martin Roscheisen announced that the first megawatt of its solar panels will be used as part of a power plant in eastern Germany.

Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen with printed solar cells.

(Credit: Nanosolar)

The release of Nanosolar’s first products is significant because the company develops a process to print solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide, a combination of elements that many companies are pursuing as an alternative to silicon.

The 5-year-old company, based in San Jose, Calif., has raised more than $100 million in financing and has drawn in Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page as investors.