By: Kelly Mead

We were pleasantly surprised that while watching “Invention Nation” tonight we we able to see the $1 solar panel production. The guys headed out to Colorado to see the new type of solar panels that should be mass produced by next year. AVA Solar is still planning on entering it’s large scale mass production by 2009.

Seeing the production of these panels showed how these panels will use less materials and energy to produce. Which will be passed on to us as consumers. These panels are produced by layering the components and then scoring to make the individual cells, instead of making a large cell then cutting and wiring together. This means less places for lose connections and lose connections means less energy efficiency. Also as these panels will be produced completely in an automated process less energy and materials will be lost or wasted in the production. Less waste is always better for our environment.

We just had to get the information out so that you can watch the production and find out more on AVA Solar panels. It will be re-aired in the morning of January 29th if anyone is lucky enough to catch it. The episode to catch is #10 “Self-Sustaining” you can check “Invention Nation” schedule here. We of course found more to write about in this episode such as EarthHaven and Enertia, but wish to do more research on those.