NanoVoltaix Company Blog (Solar)

TEMPE, Ariz., Apr 15, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR) today announced it has executed an agreement to build a 48 megawatt (MW) AC ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) power plant for Sempra Generation. This project would expand the 10MW AC power plant First Solar completed for Sempra Generation in 2008, which is located near Boulder City, Nev.

First Solar will design, engineer and construct the PV power plant. The Company expects to begin construction in 2009. Once construction is completed in 2010, the combined 58MW AC project is expected to be the largest PV power plant in North America.

"We are pleased to have the opportunity to expand this 10MW project to 58MW--more than five times its original size, advancing our mission of providing clean, affordable solar electricity," said John Carrington, First Solar executive vice president of marketing and business development. "Sempra Generation's decision to use First Solar in expanding the El Dorado solar plant demonstrates our ability to provide a cost-effective energy solution for utility scale projects."

As is the case with the original 10MW AC solar plant, the 48MW AC project will be constructed adjacent to Sempra Generation's existing 480MW El Dorado Energy power plant, located about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Sempra Generation will own and operate the PV power plant. The agreement is conditioned upon Sempra Generation executing a power purchase agreement with a utility customer for the electricity generated by the PV power plant and applicable state and local regulatory approvals.

Mark LaPedus
EE Times

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- SpectraWatt Inc.--the solar-cell spinoff of Intel Corp.--has moved its operations from Oregon and will establish the company's first factory and its new headquarters at the Hudson Valley Research Park in Hopewell Junction, N.Y.

SpectraWatt will also move into a plant that was owned by IBM Corp. The solar startup will reportedly retrofit IBM's Building 334 on the IBM campus in that area, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal.

The move would initially create over 100 jobs in the New York region within the first year of operation. The company, which is in the process of moving from their previous location in Oregon, reportedly had trouble finding and funding a suitable site in that state.

Instead, it will set up shop in New York. The company aims to be in production early in 2010. SpectraWatt's first factory line will have an initial manufacturing capacity of 60 megawatts (MW); additional lines are already being planned with site capacity exceeding 120-MW within the first two years of operation.

Last year, Intel said it was spinning off key assets of a start-up business effort inside its New Business Initiatives group to form an independent company called SpectraWatt. Intel Capital, Intel's investment organization, led a $50 million investment round in SpectraWatt and was joined by Cogentrix Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund and Solon AG.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Greentech Media Inc., the industry-leading online media company covering green technology news and analysis, released the most recent quarterly data showing that venture capital investment in green technologies totaled $836.1 million in 59 deals in the first quarter of 2009. The numbers are approximately back to 2007 levels.

Ira Ehrenpreis, General Partner at greentech investment firm, Technology Partners, remarked, “It’s important to put these numbers in perspective. The $800 million of investment this quarter is more capital than has been invested annually for most of the years that we’ve been investing in the cleantech sector. We still see a lot of money flowing into the sector, but investors are getting more discerning and are concentrating investments into the best companies.”

“Despite the slump, VC investors remain optimistic about the greentech sector and eventual exits in this space,” said Eric Wesoff, analyst at GTM Research and author of the Greentech Innovations Report, a monthly guide to investments and technology trends in greentech.

Solar continues to be the leading sector in terms of dollars and deals at $356.6 million in 14 deals, followed by energy storage with $121.5 million, and biofuels with $94.15 million. While smart grid and energy-efficiency investments have not jumped, as the billions of dollars of stimulus funding for the smart grid percolates into the market, an uptick is expected in this sector.

At least 14 of the 59 deals in the first quarter of 2009 were early stage, either seed or Round A. Round A and seed investments dominated the automotive and transportation sectors, with seven of the nine rounds being early stage.

Peter Clarke
EE Times Europe

LONDON — Sales of solar energy panels amounted to 5.6-Gwatts in 2008, up 48 percent on 2007, according to The Information Network market research company (New Tripoli, Pennsylvania). However, the global economic crisis will result in newly installed solar capacity reaching only 7.1-GW in 2009, equivalent to a global growth rate of 26 percent, before the strong growth resumes in 2010.

Production of those panels is predominantly done in Asia, the firm said. In 2008 3.3-GW or 60 percent was produced in Asia, 1.5-GW produced in Europe and just 750-MW produced in the United States.

However, while production has grown the downturn has affected the take up of alternative energy and manufacturing capacity utilization is below 50 percent, and similar to the semiconductor-for-IT industry.

Similarly polysilicon, which was in shortage for many years, is now in oversupply pushing prices of crystalline wafers below $5 which is impacting sales of much lower efficiency amorphous silicon panels

The solar panel market is expected to pick up again in 2010, growing 48 percent to 10.5-GW of newly installed photovoltaic systems. The thin-film sector, which includes amorphous silicon, CdTe, and CIGS, will represent less than 20 percent of the market in 2010. Plagued by low optical conversion efficiencies, in the region of 7 to 12 percent, this sector is still compensated by low manufacturing costs, the research firm said

PLAINVIEW, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO) announced today that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Daiyang Metal Co., Ltd. of Korea, a leader in the production of cold rolled stainless steel, to be its supplier of equipment to manufacture CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, selenium) solar cells. As a first milestone in this relationship, Daiyang has placed an initial multi-million dollar purchase order with Veeco for its complement of FastFlex™ Web Coating Systems to build a thin-film CIGS solar cell production line in Yesan, Korea. This complement of tools is comprised of one Mo (Molybdenum) deposition system, one TCO (Transparent Conductive Oxide) deposition system and two CIGS deposition systems. Veeco currently expects to ship these systems during the fourth quarter of 2009, after which it expects to firm up a follow-on order with Daiyang.

Chan Ku Kang, Chief Executive Officer of Daiyang, commented, “Daiyang Metal has an aggressive multi-year, multi-site plan to become a leading worldwide manufacturer of CIGS solar cells. Our short term goal is to aggressively ramp to 200MW capacity during 2010 and 2011, which will entail the purchase of additional Veeco systems. Ultimately it is our goal to achieve one gigawatt of CIGS production capacity by 2013. We spent a lot of time researching and surveying the suppliers of CIGS manufacturing tools, and were very impressed with the level of process support and collaboration we received from Veeco during that period. We chose Veeco because they are best prepared to meet our manufacturing and technology needs today and in the future.”

John R. Peeler, Veeco’s Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are pleased to be selected by Daiyang as they enter the CIGS solar cell market. This partnership is especially important to us because together, with Daiyang as the substrate manufacturer and Veeco as the production equipment supplier, we can accelerate the solar industry’s efficiency roadmap. CIGS is emerging as the next generation solar technology, offering combined benefits of higher efficiencies and lower costs when compared with silicon.”

Source: Josephine Mooney, SEPA

Washington, D.C.--On Tuesday, February 24,Solar Power International organizers quietly opened exhibit space sales to the general public and by the end of the day had booked an astonishing 100 new exhibitors (in addition to the 308 "priority points" exhibitors who had already secured space in advance of the public sale date). In spite of current economic realities, it appears the sixth year of this quintessential industry event, which will be held in Anaheim, California, October 27-29, will prove to be another for the record books. According to the show organizers, Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) and Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the exhibit floor is expected to sell out quickly as potentially 650 companies from around the world gather to showcase their technologies. To date, 128,000 net square feet has been sold-more than last year's overall total of 87,000 net square feet-to a total of 408 exhibitors.* Overall attendance is expected to top 25,000 in 2009.

"The industry has gained significant momentum in the U.S., especially with the recent eight-year extension of the solar investment tax credit and growing interest from electric utilities worldwide", said SEPA Executive Director Julia Hamm. "With a new Administration and Congress committed to expanding renewable energy resources and protecting the environment, the U.S. is poised for continued growth of solar energy. And Solar Power International is where it all comes together, covering policy, finance, technology and market opportunities."

John Walko
EE Times Europe

LONDON — Solar module manufacturer First Solar Inc. had both bright and subdued forecasts for the emerging solar industry, unsettling investors with suggestions that it expects demand to fall, competition to increase and huge financial challenges for the industry in the near future, as it revealed it had broken the $1/watt price barrier by reducing manufacturing costs to just $0.98/watt.

The company also posted better than expected fourth-quarter profits and revenues.

"This achievement marks a milestone in the solar industry's evolution toward providing truly sustainable energy solutions," said First Solar CEO Mike Ahearn, referring to the manufacturing costs breakthrough.

First Solar (Tempe, AZ) has been manufacturing solar modules since 2004 and has massively increased manufacturing capacity to more than 500 MW in 2008.

Christoph Hammerschmidt
EE Times Europe

MUNICH, Germany — German solar cell manufacturers Q-Cells SE and Ersol Solar Energy AG have posted their annual results. Both expect the crisis to affect their business to some extend but the key note remains optimistic.

Q-Cells (Bitterfeld-Wolfen) reports a production of solar cells with an aggregated power of 570 megawattpeak (MWp) in its FY2008. This equals a growth of 47 percent against the year before. Revenue climbed in lockstep with production to reach € 1.251 billion (about $1.63 billion), 46 percent higher than in the year before. However, in the fourth quarter the crisis made itself felt; growth declined to 13 percent over last year's Q4.

Bosch subsidiary Ersol, based in Erfurt, raised cell production by 132 percent to 123 MWp, revenue was up 93 percent to €310 million. The figures for Q4 were not immediately available but the company hinted to delays in customer projects in Q3 and Q4 as a consequence of the financial market crisis. However, the crisis led to only "slightly weaker sales", the company said in a press release

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (President and CEO: Setsuhiro Shimomura) (TOKYO:6503) announced that it has improved its world’s highest conversion efficiency rate for a 150 x 150 millimeter practical-size multi-crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) cell by 0.3 points from 18.6 percent to achieve a new world record of 18.9 percent.

Background and Summary of Development

Production volumes of solar, or PV, systems have been increasing as they have garnered attention as a good source of renewable energy, against the background of increased global environmental awareness. While silicon is an essential component in the wafers used to make PV cells, the supply of silicon has not been able to keep up with demand. This is driving research into the development of thinner wafers that not only use less silicon, but also have improved efficiency and increased electrical output.

In addition to the technology already developed by Mitsubishi Electric to improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency rate in multi-crystalline silicon PV cells, the company has developed a new method to efficiently absorb infrared rays in sunlight, thus achieving a new world record of 18.9 percent.

Rick Merritt
EE Times

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. Department of Energy has 60 days to set up a competitive process to award an estimated $4.3 billion for projects that will upgrade the nation's electric grid. That's one of the top clean technology provisions of the $787 billion economic stimulus package President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday (Feb.. 17).

Obama signed the bill against the backdrop of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, in part to showcase its clean energy focus. As part of the trip, Obama also visited Namaste Solar, a Boulder-based maker of photovoltaics.

The stimulus package "means a lot of [smart grid] projects will move a lot faster," said Katherine Hamilton, president of the GridWise Alliance, a broad consortium of 75 companies, academics and electricity providers advocating for power grid upgrades.

The bill provides $4.3 billion that the DoE can disperse as 50 percent of the funding for any two-year smart grid projects.