Members of the Pecan Street consortia include the University of Texas, utility Austin Energy, Austin Technology Incubator, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and the Environmental Defense Fund.
"In no instance is this going to go unchallenged, " says William Kovacs, the Chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs.
Nelson says the prototype will collect 25 percent of the sunlight hitting the cell (about six to ten percent better than current technology) by trapping photons inside a bowl-like photovoltaic chamber until it they are absorbed.
E-mails leaked in 2010 described how a group of technology and security firms cooked up a plan to spy on and feed disinformation to Chamber Watch and discussed it with the Chamber's law firm.