Photovoltaics with a difference

I was always told photovoltaics were expensive and that sometime in the future, technological advances would make them affordable to use, it seems like that time is near. The major costs for conventional solar panels were in the areas of acquiring the high quality silicon needed as well as high production costs and low utilization of the materials. Recent advances in technology has allowed for companies to create photovoltaic products that does not use silicon and whose production costs are slashed and material utilization increased greatly. The most promising technology right now is CIGS ( Copper Indium Gallium Selenide) ink technology where the photovoltaic ink is printed onto a special material. The company at the forefront of implementing this technology is Nanosolar, however several other companies are beginning to enter this area including Konarka, Miasole, Solopower and Solyndra. Most have just started large scale production and products will not be on the market for at least another year. The only downfall of this technology is its efficiency, the highest efficiency attained in lab tests approached 20 % and for applications efficiencies will be around 13%, however a 5% decrease in efficiency is small compared to a production cost a half or less of the conventional cost