The Solar Power International Conference, which is the largest solar industry-focused event in the U.S., kicks off on Tuesday in Anaheim, Calif, and comes at an interesting time for the solar industry. The U.S. solar biz is in the midst of a yearlong shakeout, significant government spending from the U.S. stimulus package, and growing influence from the solar industry in China. Here’s 10 things to watch out for at the Solar Power International 2009 show:

1). Green Jobs: Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis plans to speak at the event on Tuesday morning and will undoubtedly drop the g-bomb — green jobs. The stimulus package opened up clean power grants covering up to 30 percent of the cost of projects started in the next two years, as well as a loan guarantee program that has already funded at least one solar startup (Solyndra) and investment credits for clean energy manufacturing projects. All these funding mechanisms are supposed to keep the green jobs flowing out of the solar sector. Keep an eye on ways to tap into these funds and boost solar’s potential for job creation.

Continue reading this story

Thin film solar startup Nanosolar’s quiet period is over. This morning the seven-year-old company, in a flurry of press releases announced that it has started high volume production of its thin film solar material at its factory in San Jose, Calif., and has finished construction on a panel-assembly factory near Berlin, Germany. Nanosolar also detailed some of its previously unknown technology advances.

Continue reading this story

Four-year-old thin-film solar startup SoloPower has so far kept a low profile, with only four press releases posted on its site since 2007 and none before then. But earlier this month, the San Jose, Calif.-based company said it was applying for a $190 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy to build a high-volume manufacturing plan — a move that it hopes will accelerate  it “into its next stage of growth.”

SoloPower also announced this month that its founding chief executive, Homayoun Talieh, is leaving and that it has selected Lou DiNardo, a partner with SoloPower investor Crosslink Capital, as its interim CEO. The news came just a few months after the departure of Rommel Noufi, who had been the company’s vice president of research.

At the Intersolar North America conference in San Francisco last week, we sat down with Alain Harrus, a partner at Crosslink Capital and a SoloPower board member, to get an update on what’s happening at SoloPower and hear his thoughts on some of the changes the industry is seeing in solar investing. Here are excerpts from our conversation:

Continue reading this story

With the prices of silicon falling, competition heating up among solar equipment makers and solar manufacturing capacity expected to far exceed demand this year, it may seem like the worst possible time to build a solar factory. Yet several thin-film startups, such as PrimeStar Solar and Applied Quantum Technology, are doing just that.

Arvada, Colo.-based PrimeStar Solar, which is developing cadmium-telluride films, is building its first commercial factory in San Francisco and plans to have it up and running by the fourth quarter of this year, CEO Brian Murphy said at the Intersolar North America conference Thursday. The company, which was founded in 2007 and is backed by GE, opened a pilot plant in October of last year. That plant has been making full-sized panels (about 2×4 feet) in small quantities and testing them in the field. Now, the company is building a high-volume, automated factory, Murphy said.

PrimeStar’sIntersolar’s technology was initially developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which said it had achieved a world record efficiency of 16.5 percent in the lab. It’s unclear what efficiencies PrimeStar has been getting at the pilot plant, but Murphy said the company achieved “double-digit” efficiency with mini-modules last year.

Continue reading this story

Ascent Solar Technologies‘ thin-film solar panels may soon be flying the not-so-friendly skies as Bye Aerospace, a startup developing jets with better fuel efficiency and lower emissions than today’s commercial and military models, said Tuesday it plans to incorporate Ascent’s panels into its first design, an unmanned hybrid aircraft called the Silent Sentinel. The companies didn’t disclose the size of the deal, but Ascent last month said it would supply Bye with panels from its current 1.5-megawatt line, indicating the contract calls for less than 1.5 megawatts’ worth of panels per year.

Aside from the solar panels, the aircraft also will include an engine and battery pack. The panels, combined with other unnamed technologies, will enhance the Silent Sentinel’s flight-time capability, lower its emissions and help it keep silent, the companies said. The aircraft is mainly targeted at military applications, including border patrol, search and rescue, reconnaissance and air control, but also could find its way into civilian applications like traffic control, pipeline and power-line inspection, law enforcement, forest-fire detection and aerial photography.

Continue reading this story

There has been no shortage of projections that this will be a dark year for the solar market. Lux Research forecast nearly a year ago that solar supply would exceed demand in 2009. Last fall, the firm reiterated its prediction and said it expected margins to become increasingly difficult, with the weakest players either failing or being acquired. And in December, the Information Network said it anticipated global growth in the solar market to slow to 26 percent in 2009, down from 48 percent last year. We’ve been approaching the tipping point for awhile now, and according to the latest research from Lux, the solar market is finally tumbling over — with a push from the global economy.

“While oversupply in the solar market has been looming for some time, the correction has been more aggressive due to the economic crisis,” Lux senior analyst Ted Sullivan said in a release this morning. At this point, Sullivan and his team expect cell and module capacity to reach 10.4 GW, outpacing demand nearly twofold. The overall market will shrink to $29 billion and 5.3 GW, down from $36 billion and 5.5 GW in 2008, according to the Lux report.

But it’s not all doom and gloom for the solar industry. Despite expecting “widespread company failure,” Lux anticipates gains for thin-film and CIGS this year and significant strides toward grid parity — making the survivors more competitive than ever on the larger energy market.

Photo credit SunPower installation at Nellis Air Force Base

Ausra Scales Back Solar Plans: Solar startup Ausra has abandoned plans to build massive solar-thermal power plants in favor of smaller, cheaper units because of a lack of financing. — CNET’s Green Tech

More Money, More Problems?: Congress plans to put $10 billion or more in economic stimulus funding into a DOE loan guarantee program that hasn’t backed any projects since it began in 2005. A DOE spokesperson said the program will move more quickly now that it has motivated administrators. — Bloomberg

Obama’s No Jimmy Carter: The new president keeps the Oval Office toasty enough to wear shirtsleeves, opting not to demonstrate energy conservation on the job. — NYT’s Green Inc.

High-Speed Rail Hops on the Fast Track: After languishing for years at the margins of federal policy, passenger rail projects are picking up speed as President Barack Obama joins states in calling for investment in rail infrastructure. — Wired’s Autopia

CIGS on the Rise: Research firm NanoMarkets projects CIGS-based thin film photovoltaics sales will reach $2.1 billion in 2016, up from $402.1 million expected in 2011. — PV Tech

Despite a significant drop cleantech startups investments in the fourth quarter, 2008 still delivered a record level of investment for the cleantech industry, according to two reports out recently. According to the Cleantech Group’s preliminary results for the fourth quarter of 2008, $1.7 billion was put into 99 investments, the smallest quarterly total in the last 6 quarters. But in 2008 overall, $8.4 billion of venture investment went into cleantech companies, up 38 percent from the annual amount in 2007.

Analysts at Greentech Media delivered similar numbers. They found that the fourth quarter of 2008 saw more than $2.5 billion of venture investment put into cleantech firms, a drop from the previous quarter of $2.9 billion. But for the year overall, Greentech Media found that 2008 delivered “a record fundraising” year, with $7.7 billion in investment for cleantech firms.

Source: Cleantech Group

Continue reading this story

Thin-film manufacturer Global Solar Energy has flipped the switch on its 750-kilowatt solar project in Tucson, Ariz., which it claims is the world’s largest system using solar cells made of copper-indium-gallium-diselenide. The company, which makes CIGS solar cells, announced this week that the project is fully operational.

Global Solar, which in March said it was breaking ground on the solar field, previously had said the project would go live between September and November. Last month, the Gunther Portfolio reported via an anonymous source that it had actually been turned on at the end of October.

MMA Renewable Ventures, which pays the upfront cost of renewable-energy projects for commercial customers in exchange for long-term agreements to sell the resulting power to those customers, financed the Global Solar system and owns and operates it.

Continue reading this story

Tubular solar startup Solyndra piled on more sales contracts and today announced a $320 million deal with Carlisle Energy Services, a newly formed division of Carlisle Construction Materials. The deal is for 100 megawatts of panels over five years. Carlisle will work with an independent solar integrator to sell and install the cylindrical thin-film solar panels in conjunction with its Energy Star-certified, cool roof systems for commercial buildings.

The companies say that the reflective white roofing membrane boosts the electrical output of Solyndra’s solar panels, which can absorb sunlight from all directions, by 20 percent. Carlisle has already installed a Solyndra solar system on the roof of its roofing membrane manufacturing plant (see picture) and tells us the entire system went up in just one day.

This deal is in addition to Solyndra’s previously announced $1.2 billion in backlogged sales, which include contracts with German solar integrators GeckoLogic GmbH and Phoenix Solar as well as U.S.-based solar manufacturer and integrator Solar Power Inc. Today’s announced sale pushes Solyndra’s customer contracts up to $1.52 billion.

Continue reading this story