It occurs to me that you might not have found the white paper from back in 2011...
It is in a few places. Try this one.
Early on I was trying to figure out if there were any deep flaws I could discover in the high temperature hybrid approach. This paper lays out a defense of the thinking. It is pretty short and some of the data is a good bit less flattering than it could be (caution on my part mostly). Take a look though and let me know what you think. I need to write a new one with the improved optics and reduced cost of goods and maybe some more up to date economic evaluations too.
Not mentioned there but mentioned elsewhere in this blog are my observations about the unrealistic aspect of VC money expectations in a hardware/energy market. This is a really lean domain. Better to strap solar onto a roofing company, or just a lending operation. What winning money there has been in the Solar biz seems to have been there for the people who captured the finance part and some of the tool sellers. There have been winners but not VC style super block busters, or am I missing somebody?
I think about PVTsolar which became First solar and then got bought out by SunEdison, for cheap. At least that is what I gathered. Probably making OK gear and selling it for a reasonable markup etc but not the kind of huge win the VC types that backed the first iteration were looking for. I wonder if those kinds of wins were ever going to be possible in the energy market. I know they need some kind of motivating illusion to take the risk and we are talking about somewhat new markets so optimism is a good thing but while the gear is new the need (energy) is old and it is met by many competitors.
Got to get back to the grind.
