Dow Seeks To Lower Solar Energy Costs

Dow Chemical’s next step into the solar industry business arrived in Midland on a cold, blustery, sunless day.  A 1,350-ton tandem clamp injection molding machine arrived Tuesday aboard a 19 axle truck.  The long truck hauled the heavy equipment from Maryland to Dow’s Michigan Operations site.

The machine is part of Dow’s 50-million dollar investment in a new research and development project. Dow hopes to design commercial and residential building materials with energy-producing capability.

Solar shingles would be massed produced at a lower cost than current solar power producers. Current technology for home solar energy requires large, silicon-based solar cells, packaged in heavy glass panels. Dow Chemical Company is looking to make the technology more affordable.

The R & D facility, employing 22 people to start, will also find ways to use the material in exterior siding, fascias and other uses.

Installation of the solar shingles would allow homeowners to produce electricity, sending it into the local utility grid system, and reduce their home energy cost. Solar energy currently costs as much as three times power produced by the utility. Dow’s goal is to bring the solar energy cost down to 10-cents per kilowatt hour by 2015. A utility, like Consumers Energy, produces electricity today for about 8-cents per kilowatt hour.

wsgw.com