Hewlett-Packard is licensing flat-panel display technology to a start-up that could lead to dramatically more productive--and aesthetically pleasing--solar panels.
The deal, announced Wednesday, allows Livermore, Calif.-based Xtreme Energetics to use HP-developed transparent transistors to bend light in concentrating photovoltaic, or CPV, solar arrays. CPV systems squeeze more electricity from panels by maximizing the light that hits solar cells.
Click on the image to see a photo gallery of utilty-scale concentrating solar power technologies.
(Credit: SolFocus)The company is in the process of raising an "imminent" $5 million series A round of venture funding, and it anticipates a series B $35 million round, CEO Colin Williams said.
It intends to have a first-generation solar array aimed at utilities available in 12 months, he said. A product for corporate rooftops is also in the works.
The transistor materials--made of environmentally benign zinc and tin--and related manufacturing techniques could still be used for very large flat displays, said Dan Croft, director of intellectual-property licensing at HP.
Xtreme Energetics will use the technology to create an electronic "tracker" that directs sunlight to hit solar cells straight-on to maximize exposure.
Typically, these trackers are mechanical devices such as ground-mounting systems that position cells to follow the light during the course of the day.
Xtreme says HP's electronics can do the same task of pointing light. But because it's not a motor-driven steel mount, the company will be able reduce the costs of CPV, Williams said.
"The fact that we are using an electronic mechanism to do tracking means the cost scaling in volume manufacturing will go much more like the cost scaling in the electronics industry, rather than (the) mechanical-manufacturing industry," he said.
The full design calls for a multilayered solar panel with the transparent electronic tracker, a plastic "internal reflection" concentrator, and a high-efficiency solar cell.
Because the tracker and concentrator are transparent, an artistic pattern could be put onto the panel, making it possible to use it on a building facade, Williams said.
Niche buster?
The HP-licensing deal is another sign of the active crossover of technologies and of people between clean tech and information technology. IBM, which has a Big Green Innovations initiative, is adapting chip fabrication techniques to solar power, including concentrators.
Click on the image to see a photo gallery of concentrating photovoltaic arrays.
(Credit: Amonix)Xtreme Energetics has yet to build a product or prototype. Yet its electronic-tracker design could give the budding CPV marketplace a boost.
At a seminar put on by Greentech Media last week, solar expert and Prometheus Institute President Travis Bradford forecast that concentrating solar power--both concentrating solar thermal and CPV--will account for tens of gigawatts of electricity in the next decade, primarily in .
CPV, specifically, remains relatively expensive and, unlike solar-thermal technology, cannot store electricity, Bradford noted. Also, concentrating solar technology works in areas of the globe with the best irradiance, or solar radiation, including the southwest United States, southern Spain, and North Africa.
As a result, he said the extent of the role solar-concentrating power will play in the future is uncertain.
"I firmly believe (CPV) is a market that will be very large, but it doesn't have the ability to work in every market," Bradford said.
Xtreme Energetics' Williams said the electronic tracker tackles one of the biggest concerns with concentrating photovoltaics: the high costs associated with lenses and mounting equipment.
"So long as concentrating PV uses mechanical trackers, it's going to be niche," he said.
Sunrgi is going to extremes to lower the cost of electricity from the sun.
The start-up on Tuesday came out of stealth and described its solar concentrator technology and business plans.
Sunrgi's 1-kilowatt array concentrates light 1,600 times to save money on solar cells.
(Credit: Sunrgi)It has built a prototype device that magnifies light 1,600 times onto expensive germanium solar cells. The company intends to produce the devices in 12 to 15 months, and says they will capable of generating electricity at 5 cents a kilowatt hour--competitive with coal-fired power plants.
By focusing light onto high-end cells, the device can convert 37 percent of sunlight to electricity--substantially higher than the 15 to 20 percent range for typical silicon solar panels. Concentration also allows manufacturers to use less material for cells, which is a large portion of a system's cost.
The company, founded by Silicon Valley veterans, plans to sell its systems to businesses and then utilities building solar power plants to meet peak power demands. The technology can be applied to residential homes as well.
By contrast, another concentrated PV start-up, SolFocus, magnifies light several hundred times, while Solaria only doubles or triples light concentration onto standard silicon cells.
One of the dangers of concentrating light is the heat that it generates, which will make solar cells less productive and, over time, damage them.
With Sunrgi's Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics system, the temperatures can go higher than 3,000 degrees. To address this, the company has developed a cooling mechanism to dissipate the heat and keep cells as cool as if there weren't lenses to magnify light.
An MIT spinoff with Ethernet co-inventor Bob Metcalfe on its board has landed seed money to bring the cost of solar power to the much-pursued level of $1 per watt.
Called 1366 Technologies, the company raised $12.4 million from North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners, where Metcalfe is partner, to build a pilot solar cell plant in Lexington, Mass., co-founder Ely Sachs said on Wednesday.
1366 Technologies co-founder and MIT professor Ely Sachs.
(Credit: 1366 Technologies)Rather than design new materials in pursuit of a solar cell efficiency breakthrough as many newly formed solar companies are doing, 1366 Technologies is focusing on manufacturing improvements around silicon cells.
A combination of two manufacturing technologies will allow it to make polycrystalline cells 25 percent more efficient at converting light to electricity, executives said.
The technology was developed in the labs of Sachs, a noted professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who developed the "string ribbon" manufacturing process commercialized by Evergreen Solar.
Its goal is to produce solar cells at one dollar per watt, or 10 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2012, which is about half the manufacturing cost now. At that price, solar power is competitive with electricity from coal.
The company chose to focus on silicon because it's a material that's well understood, nontoxic, and reliable. Polycrystalline silicon is the most commonly used solar cell material.
"(Silicon) has all the fundamentals in place," said Sachs. "It has been on a 20 percent learning curve, meaning that over the 30-year history of photovoltaics, costs have declined by 20 percent every time the cumulative production levels double."
One technology the company is commercializing is called "grooved ribbon," an alternative method for wiring solar cells together. Small mirrors reflect light back onto solar cells that would otherwise be reflected away from the cell. That technique adds about a 3 percent improvement in cell production.
The second technology the company is working on is a way to take low-cost silicon wafers and package them for cell production, Sachs explained.
Both processes, which the company has sought patents for, can be used in existing solar manufacturing sites.
In fact, in addition to planning to make its own 25-megawatt pilot plant, 1366 Technologies is also in discussions with other solar manufacturers to license its technology, said company President Frank van Mierlo.
The company's name comes from the solar constant, or the average amount of solar radiation that hits Earth's atmosphere, which is 1366 watts per square meter.
Tel Aviv, Israel-based Pythagoras Solar has raised $10 million in series A financing and has released a scant few details on its solar photovoltaic technology.
"The company is working to combine software models, optic design, semiconductor processes, materials science, and mass manufacturing techniques to build highly durable, cost-effective solar energy products," according to the company's Web site.
Pythagoras also said Monday it will release more information on its products and technologies by early 2009.
The investment was led by Israel Cleantech Ventures and joined by Pitango Venture Capital and Evergreen Venture Partners.
The company was founded in 2006 by Gonen Fink, who previously worked at Check Point Software, and Itay Baruchi. It has an R&D center in Hakfar Hayarok, Israel, and a U.S. office in San Mateo, California.
Solar is one of the hottest areas of clean-tech investment as entrepreneurs seek out technologies to lower the price of sun-derived electricity with more efficient solar cells and optimized manufacturing processes.
Although Pythagoras has not revealed what sort of solar technology it is developing, concentrating solar power systems use optics--lenses and mirrors--to maximize the output of solar cells.
These concentrating photovoltaic arrays are being tested for solar power plants in desert areas, such as Israel. (Click here for an FAQ and photo gallery on concentrated photovoltaics, or CPV.)
Cool Earth Solar on Thursday said it has raised at least $21 million to further develop a solar generator that you could mistake for a shiny kiddie pool.
The Livermore, Calif.-based company said the Series A round, from undisclosed investors, could be augmented by other investors in 60 days.
A ballon that makes electricty.
(Credit: Cool Earth Solar)Cool Earth Solar has taken a radical approach to building a solar-power plant using a technique called concentrated solar photovoltaics, in which light is magnified onto solar cells to maximize electricity output.
It plans to manufacture plastic balloons, which will be suspended on metal and wire structures. These round balloons reflect light onto a solar cell to generate electricity.
Because its design uses relatively cheap and readily available components, these solar concentrators can generate electricity at a cost comparable to that of natural-gas plants. The inflated solar collectors can withstand 100 mile-per-hour wind.
The plastic solar collectors are mounted.
(Credit: Cool Earth Solar)Our goal from the very start was to find a clean-energy generation solution that could address the global scale of the carbon problem. We discarded everything that couldn't scale, relied on rare components, or had some other critical bottleneck. Ultimately, we developed a novel technology which radically reduces the amount of material in our system and balances labor and capital costs.
Although most people envision rooftop panels when they think of solar electricity, many new solar technologies are being developed for power plants.
Utilities in some states, notably California, need to comply with renewable-energy mandates. And certain regions, such as the Southwest U.S. desert and parts of Spain, are well-suited for solar-thermal power plants.
Concentrating solar photovoltaic arrays are also being tried for industrial-scale solar power, but unlike Cool Earth Solar's, these use sophisticated mounting systems that track the sun and expensive solar cells.
Call it building-integrated solar power for cookie-cutter housing.
DRI Energy has developed roofing tiles with solar cells built in them. For commercial customers, it has solar panels that literally glue onto flat roofs. The products, branded under the Lumeta name, will be available in the second quarter.
The Lumeta roofing tiles have solar cells embedded to fit in with the roof line.
(Credit: DRI Energy)The green tech company sells to builders of commercial constructions, like retail outlets and office buildings, and developers of tract housing, large developments of new homes.
The problem with installing solar electricity in these types of developments is that builders don't want to work solar panels and the racking systems, said Stephen Torres, chief operating officer at DRI Energy. "They don't do rack installs unless they have to," he said.
In the southwest United States, where DRI Energy operates, many roofs aren't strong enough to support a large installation of solar panels, he added. And residential customers in many cases would prefer not having visible panels.
At the same time, there is growing interest in solar power because it's cleaner and it's a hedge against rising electricity prices. So, DRI Energy has designed roofing tiles that have the solar cells within them.
The Lumeta Power-Ply is designed to stick onto flat roofs, eliminating the need for racking.
(Credit: DRI Energy)They start with standard terra-cotta colored s-tiles or flat concrete tiles and add a cavity to hold the wiring and solar cells which convert light to electricity. The added photovoltaic cells make their roofing tiles slightly thicker than tiles but are far less noticeable than adding flat panels, Torres said.
For business customers, it has designed solar panels that stick onto a flat roof with an adhesive. That "peel and stick" approach eliminates the need for brackets, said Torres.
Placing panels flat on the roof does have drawbacks. The panels will not generate as much electricity as others that are tilted to optimize the sun angle. Also, they will get hotter than rack-mounted systems which benefit from an air flow below them. That extra heat will lower their overall efficiency.
The company hopes to make up that loss with lower installation costs because there is less labor involved and they eliminate the cost of the racking, Torres said.
DRI Energy has a partnership with Chinese solar manufacturer Suntech Power to supply the cells and manufacturer the panels and solar tiles.Financiers who track the solar industry are showing very different views on the near-term potential of solar power.
Venture capitalists are poised to lavish $1 billion on solar-related start-ups this year, according to Eric Wesoff, an analyst at GreenTech Media, who presented at the company's Solar Market Outlook conference on Monday in Waltham, Mass.
At the same time, some financial analysts who track public solar companies are concerned that valuations are too high and that changes in government policies could dampen future growth.
On Monday, the stock prices of several public solar companies took a hit after the Solar Energy Industries Association issued an alert because Congress is currently considering energy legislation that eliminates an important tax credit for solar projects.
The prices of many of those stocks went up again on Tuesday, but that hasn't dispelled all the concerns in the solar market, which many investors have considered frothy for several months.
Jeff Osborne, a solar industry analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners, said that even with strong demand for solar electricity, public companies could have a tough go of it.
The industry demands large capital investments to build manufacturing capacity and is very price-sensitive, he noted during a presentation at the GreenTech Media conference.
"My view is that the solar cell is a straight commodity--it's like DRAM chips and disk drives," Osborne said.
As more Chinese companies enter the field, there will likely be more price pressure on manufacturers. Demand, which is driven largely outside the United States, could take a dip from analysts' projections if there are significant changes in policy in the large markets of Germany and Spain, he added.
"I agree that First Solar is a great company," he said in reference to the spectacular rise of First Solar's stock since going public last year. "I just question who will be 'Second Solar.'"
Venture capitalists not hearing it
Despite any choppiness in the public markets, private equity investors see a lot to like in solar start-ups.
About half of the venture capital being sunk into new solar companies is in the area of thin film, said Wesoff. Thin-film technologies use different materials, including CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) and cadmium telluride, to make solar cells.
They typically are not as efficient as polysilicon, which is used in more than 90 percent of solar panels, but new companies are betting they can outperform on overall price per watt.
"This is the standard VC play," said Wesoff. "They're betting on a disruptive technology--thin film--getting rid of silicon."
Other solar technology areas getting VC attention include concentrated solar power, solar thermal, and services companies that provide financing or installation services.
Thin-film solar companies have the potential to have a deep impact on the overall solar industry, said Travis Bradford, CEO of the Prometheus Institute, who also presented on Monday. He noted that there are more than 80 thin-film companies competing in the market now.
First Solar's thin-film manufacturing process creates modules at less than $1.25 per watt, which "has changed the economic game for the solar PV (photovoltaic) industry," he said.
He projected that thin-films will make up 20 percent of solar cell production by 2010.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory gave out awards on Thursday to two companies developing solar electric cells they hope will bring a breakthrough in solar panel efficiency.
Top prize went to Wakonda Technologies, based in upstate New York, which is commercializing "virtual single crystal" technology.
Start-ups seek the ultimate in solar cells: highly efficient and flexible.
(Credit: Wakonda Technologies. )The efficiency of converting sunlight to electricity in solar cells made from silicon--the most common material today--are in the 15 percent to 20 percent range. Companies are trying to manufacture cells out of other materials--copper-indium-gallium-diselenide or cadmium-telluride--to be more cost-effective.
The efficiency and cost-effectiveness of commercial cells is expected to improve incrementally over the next several years. But at the same time, researchers are pursuing techniques to boost efficiency dramatically.
Based on information posted on its Web site, Wakonda is trying to make high-efficiency solar cells more flexible so that they can be integrated into roof shingles and other structures.
"Wakonda is developing a revolutionary method to significantly reduce raw materials cost--the primary cost driver in production of inherently high efficiency III-V cells. Our virtual single crystal uses a proprietary surface treatment that allows a low cost, commercial metal foil to simulate an expensive single crystal wafer," according to its Web site.
A company representative wasn't available by phone this morning.
Another company swinging for the fences in solar cell efficiency won second prize in the NREL competition, which was announced in conjunction with its Industry Growth Forum this week.
Bandgap Engineering, based in Westwood, Mass., is pursuing a "third-generation" solar cell meant to push efficiency to over 50 percent, according to the company's Chief Technology Officer Marcie Black.
Black pitched to investors at the Clean Energy Conference in Boston recently where she detailed the technology her company is pursuing.
"We are nano-engineering silicon so it is optimized for electricity conversion," she said.
The technique calls for putting an intermediate band in silicon solar cells to improve efficiency without generating too much heat, she said.
In the scheme of things, these winners aren't walking away with a whole lot of money. Wakonda won $10,000 and Bandgap Engineering got $1,500. The third winner--solid-state lighting company Albeo Technologies--also got $1,500.
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