A low-cost electricity using thin-film amorphous-silicon
photovoltaics is in the works. Imagine what would be possible if
solar cells were available for 70 cents per watt! At that price,
a fully equipped home would receive its electricity at a cost
that's equivalent to utility-produced energy billed at 10 cents
per kilowatt-hour (KWH). Power company rates now average 7 cents
per KWH in the U.S., and the dime-per figure promises to be upon
us all too soon. (In other parts of the world—Japan, for
example—even that price is already a fond but fading memory.)
But is it really possible that solar cells will sell for 70
cents per watt in the next few years? The answer is yes, if
current trends in thinfilm cell research are any indication of
what can be done. And one of the hotbeds of such investigation
is Japan, which began to organize a national effort to study
photoelectricity back in 1974. You see, that country
recognized—nearly ten years ago—that fuel prices were going
nowhere but up! Since then, photovoltaics