Nanosolar raises $300 million for thin-film solar

Nanosolar, a maker of thin-film solar panels, said that it has raised $300 million to accelerate production of solar-power facilities in Berlin and San Jose, Calif.

The round of funding, which was completed this spring but announced Wednesday by Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen on the company's blog, brings the total money the six-year-old company has raised to half of a billion dollars. Nanosolar is one of the darlings of the clean-tech investing craze.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Nanosolar's strategic investors include power company AES Corp., equity firm the Carlyle Group, and electric utility company EDF--the three of which formed AES Solar as part of the deal, Roscheisen said. Those alliances will presumably help Nanosolar develop utility-scale solar power that would be cost efficient.

Other investors were hedge fund Lone Pine Capital, the Skoll Foundation, and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's fund, he said.

"The new capital will allow us to accelerate production expansion for our 430 megawatt San Jose factory and our 620 megawatt Berlin factory," Roscheisen wrote.

He did not say when the facilities will be complete. But he said that the funding will help the company meet demand for the thin-film solar technology it introduced in December. Nanosolar is one of several companies betting on a photovoltaic-alternative known as copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), which purportedly convert more sunlight into energy than other types of thin-film materials.

"The alliance for solar utility power is the outcome of a year long effort on behalf of our strategic partners examining the solar industry, investigating virtually every solar company on the planet, and conducting one of the most thorough due diligence efforts," he wrote.

[tomdurham]

Am very interested in lower cost solar panels and any subsidies or rebates available to homeowners. I am studying all options to affordable energy production that might help free me from utility payments.

[Manhattan2]

Anyone studying residential solar based installations needs to at least look at the core of the Solar Transfer concept before they proceed. It is our goal to make as much of the solar investments that people are willing to make go to the greater good. The greater good in this case is higher power return on that same invested dollar. That will mean shorter payoff periods for the end-users and a 2-4 fold improvement on CO2 reductions over the life of your investment. While our solutions are just months away from being deployed it is the volunteers like myself, whose responsibility it is to make sure people think twice or even three times before they jump into solar power. There is a better way. It can already be deployed to today but in a few short months you will see why we have been trying our hardest to keep you informed without releasing our engineering design. [e-mail] .

[Lord_Stockton]

You think your Government is unsympathetic to renewable engery.

Here in Australia any question to the federal government is prefefaced with "the answer is coal. Now what is your question?"

Please keep my posted on your developments.

[regulator1956]

"It can already be deployed to today but in a few short months you will see why we have been trying our hardest to keep you informed without releasing our engineering design. [e-mail]"

We all already know why. IT'S A SCAM !!!

[stlwest]

That's a lot of money for a company that has yet to provide a single product available to the public. If you look at their web site they indicate one processing machine costing only a couple million can pump out a gigawatt per year. Since the declared plants capacity combined is only 1 Gigawatt, some explanation should be forthcoming from the company. I hope the people putting in money have actually done their due diligence to determine if the company really has a breakthrough and that the #'s add up.

http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/?p=10

and they say they can crank those machines up to operate 20 times faster which would be 20 gigawatts per machine per year. Of course you would have to account for down time and other production line, but if this is for real they quite possibly could pump out a terawatt per year of panels with 100 of these machines running at half maximum capacity.

I truly hope as in the video, solar power for everyone is not continual hype and hope the company starts selling kits directly to the public at the prices they keep touting, at or under $1/watt.

It sure would be nice for the company to put out some time lines so people know whether it is worth waiting around for Nanosolar to produce something more than vapor panels. I mean if your gonna just exploit the market for maximum gain and not really change the world, just come out and say it. Solar prices have been stuck for several years now around $4 a watt but a lot of companies are working on this technology and at least one of them will take a fair profit and pump out panels to the people. Power to the people baby!!!