The solar power installation at Applied Materials' headquarters is further evidence that companies looking to go green should think blacktop.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based maker of gear for making high-tech products announced Friday that it has completed the installation a pair of solar power systems that together can produce 2.1 megawatts of energy--which qualifies it, the company says, as the "largest solar power deployment at a corporate facility in the United States."
The 1.2-megawatt SunPower Tracker looks to the sky above the parking lot at Applied Materials.
(Credit: SunPower, via PR Newswire Photo Service)At the nearby Mountain View campus of green-minded Google, an expansive solar installation accounts for 1.6 megawatts. In Nelson, Calif., Far West Rice Mills earlier this year dedicated a 1-megawatt solar array.
Applied Materials splits the solar workload into two pieces serving as a canopy over its parking lot: a 950-kilowatt SunPower PowerGuard installation and a 1.2-megawatt SunPower Tracker setup.
Parking lots, with their wide-open expanses, are an area of focus for some solar power enthusiasts. Researchers, meanwhile, are looking into the power-generating potential of asphalt itself.
The relationship between SunPower and Applied Materials is mutually reinforcing. The solar panels supplied by SunPower are equipped with solar cells manufactured in a process that uses Baccini technology from Applied Materials.
Applied Materials said its solar power system is expected to eliminate more than 2,700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or roughly the output of 450 cars. Since November 2007, when the first part of the system went into operation, the solar energy output has been just over 1,400 megawatt hours.
The company also took the opportunity to put in a plug for congressional renewal of the solar energy tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of the year. Applied Materials said that an eight-year extension of the tax credit would create 1.2 million job opportunities and stimulate more than $200 billion in solar energy investments.
1. The company is energy or environmental technology related. 2. I like their products. 3. The market needs them. 4. The company is smart about building their business. 5. I'd like to own the company if I could (for the right price, of course!). 6. It is not already one of mine (my apologies to my friends Zenergy Power).
I have included cleantech companies big and small. Volume I surprisingly ended up with a lot more solar companies than I would have guessed, and no biofuels. Perhaps I really am a closet solar fanatic.
1. Sharp Electronics - In solar, still the biggest, and still growing. Enough said.
2. Det Norske Veritas - DNV is a massive 150 year old risk management firm. Their auditors underpin roughly half of the carbon markets. In carbon, audit and verification is everything. I could not leave them off.
3. IBM (NYSE:IBM) - What IBM is doing in smart grid is very exciting. They are part of a large proportion of the smart grid implementations that are in process, and a huge proponent of open standards. Smart grid is to electricity what fiber is to telecom. It underpins everything.
4. Applied Materials (NYSE:AMAT) - The future of photovoltaics lies in scaling thin film manufacturing process. Who better to do this than the dean of semiconductor capital equipment. I broke the story of Applied's entry to solar in the blogosphere in 2006, and if anything underestimated how hard they were pushing. The whisper mill has been whirring that the installations of their plants are not on track. Not only do I have faith they will get there, I think it is critical to the industry that they do.
5. Fuel Tech (NASDAQ:FTEK) - I wrote about them in 2007. The CEO John Norris is a long time friend and an excellent operator. Cleaning up coal is a huge business that needs to be done, and they do it well.
6. Fat Spaniel - Distributed power, solar included, is a ticking time bomb without independent monitoring. Fat Spaniel does it the best.
7. Smart Fuel Cells (XETRA:F3C.DE) - I wrote about them recently. I helped create a fuel cell business in 2002. This is the first fuel cell company in 5 years that has intrigued me. They actually ship product with solid gross margins. That is a start.
8. First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) - Lowest cost producer in the photovoltaic business. Guaranteed to make the list until dethroned.
9. Global Solar - I have been following this company for a long time. CIGS is very hard and has broken (or is currently breaking) hundreds of millions or billions of dollars worth of wannabes. This management team, led by Mike Gering, respects how hard it is. And since they have actually been running a pilot plant shipping product for 3 years, so we need to take note when they say they have cracked the manufacturing scale nut.
10. Schott - Long a major player in crystalline silicon photovoltaics, amorphous silicon photovoltaics and concentrated solar thermal, where they are one of the top manufacturers of solar thermal receivers. That balance is unique, and exciting.
Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and startups in cleantech. He is Chairman of Cleantech.org, and a blogger for CNET's Greentech blog.
Applied Materials bought Baccini, a European company specializing in manufacturing tools, today for approximately $335 million to further expand its footprint in solar energy.
Applied has been the world's largest manufacturer of factory equipment for the semiconductor industry for several years, but has been making a concerted effort to expand into the solar industry. The manufacturing process for both crystalline solar cells and thin-film solar cells, after all, are similar to the processes employed, respectively, to make chips and liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
The company has even been building complete, turnkey factories for some solar clients. Some believe that this will expand the number of solar manufacturers because these transactions enable newcomers to take advantage of Applied's expertise. ( Charlie Gay, who heads up Applied's solar group, is also one of the regular speaking stars on the clean-tech circuit.)
In May 2006, Applied agreed to acquire Applied Films (which made equipment that deposits chemicals onto substrates) and HCT Shaping Systems for its solar group.
Baccini's equipment is largely aimed at customers making silicon solar cells. The tools help with the metalization process, which involves inserting metal connections into materials, then testing.
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