Nanosolar is a startup based in Silicon that got heavy financed and already won contracts from Department of energy and DARPA. They has developed a proprietary NanoParticle ink that makes it possible to simply print CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenium) onto a thin polymer that does not involve the expensive silicon. Here’s some key point from their site:

- the world’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product;

- the world’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability;

- the world’s lowest-cost solar panel – which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt;

- the world’s highest-current thin-film solar panel – delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment;

- an intensely systems-optimized product with the lowest balance-of-system cost of any thin-film panel – due to innovations in design we have included.