Innovalight To Double Silicon Ink Efficiency

July 14, 2010

Innovalight boasts that it will be able to double the solar potency of its nanocrystalline silicon ink as soon as next year.

By 2012, additional improvements should push the efficiency of a mainstream crystalline solar cell using the ink to above 20 percent.

Conrad Burke, chief executive of the Sunnyvale, CA, company, said the company’s silicon ink today adds 1 percentage point to the efficiency of a mainstream solar cell. So a cell that is 18 percent efficient jumps to 19 percent.

Next year, the ink will add 2 percentage points to overall efficiency, and in 2012, the target is 3. That should push the 18 percent crystalline cell to 20 percent next year.

The company expects to see this level of efficiency in its labs this year, Burke said at the Intersolar conference in San Francisco.

Such a boost should interest solar cell makers fighting for each tenth of a percentage point gain – and challenge efficiency leader SunPower. SunPower’s cell design is more complex than others and may not easily lend itself to a silicon ink.

Innovalight’s silicon ink is made up of silicon particles 5nm to 10nm in size. It is applied using the screen-printing technology typically used by semiconductor lines during back-end metallization.

When applied to solar cell production, screen-printing becomes a front-end process, and a relatively simple one, says Burke. Pattern alignment is not complicated.

Burke said prices for the printing tool have fallen to about $400,000. For this reason, don’t be surprised to see 20 percent efficient solar cell coming out of China sooner rather than later.

Already, Chinese solar cell maker JA Solar Holdings has latched onto the technology. The company this week announced a three-year contract with Innovalight and said its Secium cells would use the technology.

The cells are in pilot production and have achieved 18.9 percent efficiency.

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Solar Industry May Get Reprieve From German Tariff Cuts

July 6, 2010

German policy makers look poised to deliver the solar industry a jolt of good news

A compromise plan to reduce the country’s generous solar feed-in tariff would cut the subsidies less than expected. With the plan gaining ground in the parliament, German solar stocks moved higher, though solar stocks traded in the United States did not follow suit.

The new proposal would trim subsidies for power that rooftop solar panels feed into the grid by 13 percent, instead of the 16 percent previously anticipated.

Subsidies for ground-mounted systems would fall 12 percent, instead of 15 percent, and military and industrial installations would see an 8 percent cut instead of an 11 percent one.

The initial reductions had been expected by July 1, but were hung up when the Bundesrat upper house of parliament didn’t sign on. The upper house will vote on the new reductions on Friday.

The new plan could still be turned aside, but the Bundestag lower house could overrule the vote.

The smaller cuts would be a welcome reprieve for the industry. Solar companies have been anticipating slowing demand in the world’s largest solar market – Germany – even as purchases accelerated earlier this year in anticipation of the cuts.

Despite the compromise proposal, expect the battle over tariffs to continue. Opposition Social Democrats say they worry about job losses even these lessened cuts would bring.

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ESolar To Branch Into Module Molten Salt Plants

July 6, 2010

Solar thermal has been hot lately (pardon the pun).

This weekend, President Obama doled out $1.45 billion in loan guarantees for Abengoa’s 250 MW, molten-salt farm in Gila Bend, Arizona. Two months earlier, the Department of Energy dispatched another $62 million for technology development and component design.

Among the winners of the DOE award were Pratt & Whitney’s Rocketdyne, Abengoa and eSolar – which finally last week elaborated on the project it has underway with Babcock & Wilcox.  The two companies will use $10.8 million in funding to build and test modular plant components, including a molten-salt receiver, a molten salt to steam heat exchanger and a molten-salt storage system.

The move to molten salt is new direction for eSolar, which up to now has relied on directly heating water to produce steam. The funding will “accelerate the research and development of (the) economic storage” of solar thermal power generation capacity to extend the operating range of plants, says eSolar CEO John Van Scoter.

But despite the new funding, all is not well in the industry. Falling photovoltaic prices pressure plant development at a time when vendors struggle to find financing for a new generation of tower-oriented farms.

These pressures already resulted in the cancellation of two eSolar project, according to a published reports, including one on Green Wombat. PG&E decided to scale back the Alpine SunTower farm in California and replace eSolar’s field of heliostats with PV panels.

A second New Mexico facility where El Paso Electric is to receive power also is switching to PV.

ESolar and partner NRG Energy said in a statement that downsizing the California plant from 92 MW to 66 MW was the result of limited transmission capacity at the site.

But more than transmission, the challenge for solar-thermal developers is low-cost solar panels. PV prices fell sharply last year, and plant financing has become easier. Perhaps the DOE recognized this with its May funding awards urging the developing of lower cost solar thermal technology. According to eSolar, the goal of its work with Babcock and Wilcox will be to achieve the lowest levelized electricity cost of any utility scale solar thermal plant.

That means allowing plant components to be built in a factory and shipped fully assembled to a site. This will simplify permitting and construction.

The completion of the work with Babcock & Wilcox is 2.5 years away. Seems as if there is no time to waste.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

How Big Is The Clean Tech Market?

July 2, 2010

What is the annual market opportunity for renewable energy and efficiency measures, such as building controls, energy reconstruction and electric vehicles? Does $1 trillion sound like an enticing number?

One trillion dollars may sound gargantuan, but it is what the International Energy Agency suggested in a recommendation earlier this week. And it isn’t far from the scale of the global warming efforts called for in other top studies.

In its landmark 2007 report, for instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that mitigating atmospheric heat rise would cost the world 0.2 percent to 3 percent of annual GDP. Mitigation isn’t the same as market opportunity.

To obtain an economy where 50 percent of electricity come from renewable sources, the world will need to build the generation listed above

But it defines the magnitude of the effort – and perhaps the willingness of business to respond with innovation.

To put the IPCC’s projection in annual dollars, consider that the world’s gross domestic product is $61 billion. Three percent of that comes to $1.8 trillion a year. The IPCC’s report says the effort would hold temperature increases to between 2 degrees and 4 degrees Celsius.

The Paris-based IEA looks at impact from a different angle. The agency projects that the world will need to spend $46 trillion between now and 2050 to be sure half of all electricity comes from renewable sources. This includes improving energy efficiency.

Divide the number out and it comes to about $1.2 trillion a year. Most of this spending is to come from consumers buying more efficient, low-carbon equipment and, particularly, cars. Of course some of the money will be paid back through lower fuel use.

But achieving an economy where 50 percent of electricity comes from renewable generation requires an industrial investment as well beyond what might be anticipated to meet growing energy demand. That approach includes the annual construction or deployment of:

*More than 30 nuclear reactors;
*Thirty-five coal-fired plants with carbon capture technology;
*Two hundred biomass plants;
*Nearly 16,000 wind turbines;
*Forty-five geothermal plants;
*Three hundred and twenty-five million solar panels; and
*Fifty-five solar thermal plants.

Energy-efficiency improvements in developed countries also must continue at today’s almost 2 percent a year pace, a pace that is almost double from the 1990s.

The IAE points out that in 2008, the world invested about $110 billion in wind, solar and other renewable generation. Investment levels remained relatively stable in 2009, despite the downturn.

Still, they are one-tenth of where they need to be. It sounds like a monster of an opportunity.

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Solar Tops Venture Investing But Watch Out Below

July 1, 2010

Overall, the second quarter appears a stable investment period for venture capital and clean tech.

A breakdown of second quarter clean-tech investment categories shows the prominence of solar

Venture capital firms poured $2.02 billion into 140 companies despite a relatively tumultuous three months in the public markets. This global total nearly matches the $2.04 of the first quarter and is up 43 percent from last year (an almost pointless comparison given the depths of the global downturn last year).

What’s really interesting in Thursday report from the Cleantech Group and Deloitte is the amount of money VC continued to put into solar start-ups, despite the prevailing wisdom that these cash-intensive investments so popular several years ago had seen their day. Without that money – $811 million – venture investing looks depressed and should signal a warning for the rest of the year.

Solar drew the largest chunk of the money, and big deals were the fashion of the day. Solyndra took in $175 million; BrightSource claimed $150 million; and Amonix, a developer of a concentrating photovoltaic technology, won $129.4 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and others.

The conclusion one might draw is that VCs continue to think solar will be a big money maker and a substantial piece of the world’s energy future. But there are a variety of factors at play, some not so sanguine. Solyndra took its money after withdrawing an IPO that was unlikely to be welcomed on Wall Street. There may have been no alternative except for venture investors to walk away from money already spent.

BrightSource, too, had special needs. It is trying to secure its first solar thermal plant in the Southwest desert and faces an end-of-year tax credit deadline and a September 2011 construction deadline for its $1.37 billion in federal loan guarantees. It needs to have a lot happen between now and then, including taking in private money to match the public funds.

The second largest category, biofuels, roped $301 million. But this total also needs to be examined closely. Of the amount, Amyris captured almost $109 million. The company is shortly headed to the public markets for an IPO, so is a special investment case. Virent Energy Systems, a Wisconsin biofuel maker, attracted an additional $46 million from Shell and Cargill (not typical venture sources), and Kior of Texas took in $40.

The remaining categories of smart grid and energy efficiency posted investments of $256 million and $147 million, respectively.

In other words, while the quarter appeared stable, several large deals with special needs were responsible for a big slice of the total. Without them, a stable seeming clean-tech venture capital environment might be down in the dumps.

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Another Setback For PACE

July 1, 2010

PACE’s goal of simple, easily accessible home energy finance hit another roadblock last month when a California judge held up distributing $30 million to get local programs off the ground.

The legal dispute delays or slows PACE programs in 23 counties across the state. California has been among the leaders in PACE, or Property Assessed Clean Energy, financing, with two-third of the state scheduled to have working programs by year’s end.

Under PACE, homeowners borrow government money for home energy improvements and repay the loans as assessments on their property tax bills. Municipalities sell bonds to come up with the cash.

Lawsuit holds up $30 million that would jumpstart California programs

The legal wrangling pits PACE’s two greatest constituencies – energy-efficiency contractors and solar installers – against one another. Both hope to benefit from the flow of government money.

In the suit, the Western Riverside Council of Governments – representing 16 southern California cities – lays claim to $20 million of the $30 million in PACE funding. Its application for the money was turned down because the region wants to make it easy for homeowners to install solar panels. In doing so, it rejects a state requirement that homes reduce energy use 10 percent or more with energy retrofits before considering solar. The requirement is typical of PACE programs.

The California Energy Commission instead awarded the money to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the counties of Sonoma, Sacramento and Humboldt. The Western Riverside Council of Governments protested the decision, but was told it failed to appeal by the required deadline. It filed suit, and the court ordered its appeal to be heard.

Riverside country officials did not respond to several requests for comment.

The impact on the state is far reaching. Michael Levy, chief counsel for the California Energy Commission, said the 23 counties granted the money plan to leverage more than $370 million of tax credits, utility rebates and other funding to jumpstart energy retrofits at homes and businesses and create 4,353 jobs. The financial limbo also backs the state up against a deadline: the federal recovery act money paying for the PACE initiative needs to be distributed by Sept. 30 or used for another purpose.

The dispute is only the latest to engulf PACE. In May, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac roiled PACE efforts when the two mortgage lenders suggested they would shun homes with PACE payments, or liens. They fear a PACE loan would get priority over their mortgages in the event of a default.

The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac letter put the brakes on PACE programs across the country, including in San Francisco, where officials stopped approving PACE applications this month.

The council of governments’ dispute creates another layer of uncertainty. “It really dramatically impacts our program,” says Johanna Partin, director of climate protection initiatives for San Francisco.

San Francisco kicked off the nation’s largest PACE program in April and hopes to use the $2 million it won from the California Energy Commission to lower PACE interest rates to about 7 percent from an estimated 8.5 percent. (An even lower interest rate is planned for low-income households.)

The city found a small amount of money from another source to move ahead with its interest rate reduction effort. But the money filled the gap only because the city received a trickle of 20 PACE applications. The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac controversy slowed interest.

A similar setback is facing John Haig, energy and sustainability manager for Sonoma County. Haig expected to use his $2.6 million award to lower the cost of energy audits, market PACE to residents and get financial advice on selling bonds. None of this can take place.

“Not having the grant causes us difficulty in going to the next phase,” says Haig. Sonoma’s program continues with $1 million in municipal funding.

An even greater impact confronts the 14 counties of the CalforniaFirst initiative, which includes Sacramento County. The counties qualified for $16.5 million to kick off PACE, but now the efforts are on hold. “The level of uncertainty does cause tension across the program,” says Peter Ucovich, a senior planner with Sacramento County’s infrastructure finance section.

Ocovich says Sacramento isn’t likely to begin approving homeowner financing until the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issue is resolved. But two hurdles are worse than one.

The California Energy Commission is to appear in court on Friday to attempt to free the money. But of course no one knows the outcome of the hearing

Talk to PACE officials across the state and the only acceptable resolution: is one that let the programs move ahead.

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Siemens Wants To Be Number One In Solar Thermal

June 30, 2010

Siemens continues to talk tough about solar thermal.

The German conglomerate with 18 billion Euros in sales so far this year says its goal is to be the world’s leading solar-thermal company, toping companies such as BrightSource, eSolar and SolarReserve.

It didn’t say by when. But it claims its decision in May to buy 45 percent of Archimede Solar Energy and its purchase of Solel last year give it a broader portfolio of products than competitors.

With recent acquistions, Siemens claims its has 70 percent of the components and systems the new generation of solar thermal plants need.

Archimede is a joint venture between Siemens and Angelantoni Industries and makes solar receivers for concentrating solar. Output is to 75,000 receivers by 2011. Siemens had 28 percent of the venture before increasing it to 45 percent.

The German giant bought Solel Solar of Israel in October, paying $418 million. Solel develops plants and manufactures equipment.

On a conference call this week, Rene Umlauft, head of the Siemens’ renewable energy division, said the acquisitions give Siemens 70 percent of the components and systems necessary for solar thermal plants.

“We have the power blocks,” says Umlauft.

The company is now promising lower costs – as a new generation of more efficient plants begins to take root in the American Southwest, northern Africa and Australia. The plants use mirrors to reflect sunlight and boil liquids, often in concentrators or receivers on the tops of tall towers. The super hot liquids turn turbines to create electricity.

The plants are expensive to build, which might give Siemens, with its financial resources, an advantage. In the United States, 2010 is a year to watch. Several large facilities from companies such as BrightSource and SolarReserve hope to win approval and construction is anticipated to begin.

Also among Siemens’ goals:

*Become the number three vendor in wind turbines by 2012;

Deliver a 6 MW wind turbine by 2012. A prototye of the massive product is to be installed for testing next year.

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Mergers Seen As Clean Tech’s Financial Lifeline

June 28, 2010

Earlier this month, Solar panel maker Solyndra cancelled its IPO citing current market uncertainties.

It was not alone. Six other companies cancelled theirs the same month, though they were not in the clean-tech business.

Tesla Motors will soldier on and sell stock to the public on thsi week. The shares may even get a warm reception, despite that the company’s $290 million of losses since its founding seven years ago.

Venture capitalists predict a wave of mergers and aquisitions in clean tech.

These days Tesla is looking more like the exception rather than the rule. Other clean-tech companies have IPOs in the pipeline, Amyris and Zipcar, for example. Still others, such as Silver Spring Networks, will likely get favorable receptions if they decide to launch their own deals. (Speculation is Silver Spring could announce in July.)

But it appears more likely clean-tech start-ups and venture capitalists will make money and fund company expansion with mergers and acquisitions rather than new stock offerings. With the window for IPOs once again shutting, M&As could find themselves on the rise.

“I think we are likely to see a huge wave of M&A kicking in for clean tech,” says Alan Salzman, CEO of Vantage Point Venture Partners. The growing maturity of young companies will fuel it.

There are signs of a building wave already. In the first quarter, clean-tech companies logged 197 M&A transactions compared with just 13 IPOs, according to Cleantech Group. Despite a long list of companies registering for stock sales in the U.S., most of the IPOs – eight – took place in China.

And while the IPOs were off 28 percent from the fourth quarter, mergers and acquisitions seem on the rise. In 2009, 505 deals took place globally, or an average of 126 a quarter.

A noticeable share of the action so far involves solar technologies. Germany1 Acquisitions of Germany, for instance, paid $775 million to acquire AEG Power Solutions, a maker of inverters for solar panels, while late last year Siemens agreed to buy solar thermal company Solel of Israel and SunPower took out SunRay Renewable Energy, the Italian solar plant developer, in February.

In China, GCL-Poly Energy Holdings bought polysilicon wafer maker Jiangsu Zhongneng Polysilicon Technology Development.

But other deals looked beyond the segment. Solar City, for instance, announced in May it would buy the assets of energy remodeling contractor Building Solutions.

Erik Straser, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, says the coming wave of deals could bring higher prices than comparable deals in high tech. That’s because target companies will need to be more mature, and their businesses will need to present obvious benefits to acquirers, such as a General Electric.

A GE acquisitions manager will need to show clear business benefits before a deal is done, he says. That clarity of purpose comes at a price.

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SunPower Builds 24% Cell As Solar Market Shifts Underfoot

June 23, 2010

In the Mexican standoff that is the long-standing U.S.-China currency debate, the outcome for the solar industry is difficult to predict.

But one thing is clear. The changing landscape could shift the axis of the solar market over the next year or two as price declines moderate and advanced technology plays a bigger role in buying decisions. With this change as a backdrop, SunPower said Wednesday it successfully built a solar cell with a 24.2 percent market-leading efficiency.

Sunpower says new cell sets record for large wafers. Meanwhile, a rising Chinese currency could change the solar landscape.

The Chinese blinked in the currency debate last Saturday and vowed to permit more market flexibility in the pricing of the renminbi. But after several days of very minor, carefully orchestrated increases, the promise seems to lack short-term monetary firepower.

The most optimistic of analysts predict gradual appreciation in the under-valued Chinese currency over the next several months. The most skeptical observers have begun calling for legislation to combat “currency manipulation” and the artificially low exchange rate.

The implication for clean-tech companies, particularly solar panel makers, is profound. A more expensive Chinese renminbi will raise the cost of what some in the industry consider subsidized, below-market solar panels coming from the country. (Besides being low priced, there are claims some of these panels are low quality as well, failing after a couple years of use.)

In a research note, Wall Street analyst Edwin Mok at Needham said a stronger Chinese currency will result in higher priced panels – or at least a slowing of price declines. This in turn could reduce worldwide demand.

But while Chinese companies might see lower profit margins (or higher losses), companies in the United States and Europe could see benefits. These firms, including SunPower and First Solar, would no longer have to compete with excessively cheap Chinese labor.

In this shifting market place, the race to higher efficiency cells could gain in importance. SunPower said its new cell set a record verified by the National Renewable Energy lab for large silicon wafers.

It did not say when it expects to see 24 percent efficient cells in the market. But the company does seem to be maintaining its lead over rivals, such as JA Solar, with laboratory cells now at 18.5 percent, and Suntech, which is struggling to get its new 19 percent efficient Pluto cells to the market.

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Is Ivanpah The World’s Most Efficient Solar Plant?

June 21, 2010

BrightSource Energy’s planned Ivanpah plant will be one of the world’s largest solar farms and possibly its most efficient.

When the solar-thermal plant is built on the edge of the Mojave National Preserve (construction is expected to start this year), it will operate at 18 percent efficiency and earn a capacity factor of 30 percent.

BrightSource boasts of 18 percent plant efficiency and a 30 percent capacity factor.

This performance should make the 392-MW facility more efficient than plants with crystalline-silicon panels, thin-film cells or rival thermal technologies using parabolic mirrors, according to analysts.

The plant is to be laid out on three nearby tracts covering 3,500 acres of desert and should run at full capacity 10 to 11 hours a day. The company says a back-up natural gas system will aid performance during its long hours of operation, easing power fluctuations on cloudy days. This consistency of power should put electricity costs on par with natural-gas plants, something photovoltaic plants will take another two years to achieve, some analysts say.

While comparing plants is complex and imperfect, the newly available figures from BrightSource make the exercise a useful chore. Sun intensity, atmospheric moisture levels and power transmission costs of course differ plant location to plant location.

But determining who holds the industry’s bragging rights – as well as who deserves project investment dollars – is a task utilities attempt everyday, despite the difficulties.

In an interview, BrightSource Product Manager Andy Taylor described Ivanpah’s efficiency as a sunlight-to-electricity calculation based on two years of testing the company’s Luz Power Tower 550 in Israel’s Negev Desert. At the top of the towers, boilers absorb sunlight reflected from 7-square-meter ground-mounted mirrors and heat water to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature in the industry. The super-heated steam drives turbines.

The company says a back-up natural gas system permits the long operating hours and the ability to run most of the day at full capacity. The gas is used to warm boilers in the morning and augment solar power on cloudy days to keep output high.

“We’re pretty much a sun-up-to-sun-down resource,” Taylor says.

BrightSource, which has so far raised more than $300 million in financing, expects the plant’s efficiency to rise as the company moves beyond its first-generation technology. Higher-efficiency turbines are already in the market, and additional mirrors, or heliostats, can be deployed. Water temperatures also will rise to above 1,100 degrees.

In contrast to Ivanpah’s 18 percent efficiency, the efficiency of utility-scale crystalline silicon and thin-film plants is likely less than 12 percent. Solar-thermal plants with parabolic mirrors also have difficulties keeping up. Ivanpah’s higher boiler temperatures give it an advantage, and dual-axis tracking can more accurately follow the sun through the seasons. The average efficiency of other solar thermal plants is 13 to 15 percent, says Cara Libby, project manager at the Electric Power Research Institute.

That doesn’t mean Ivanpah won’t have competition, One crystalline-silicon vendor, SunPower, with industry leading 18 percent efficient solar cells, could give BrightSource a run for its money, says Travis Bradford, president of the public-policy think tank, Prometheus Institute. A SunPower farm with a single axis tracking could have an efficiency of 15 percent, maybe slightly higher depending on the location, he says.

Broader competition will come with falling solar-panels prices, unless a stronger Chinese currency slows the trend. Panel prices tumbled about 40 percent last year and, while they are more stable this year, they continue to decline more rapidly than solar thermal efficiency is improving.

BrightSource responds that plant efficiency is only one measure of performance, and not necessarily the best. Capacity factor, a calculation of a farm’s ability to deliver full power over time, may be more important, the company says.

Ivanpah’s capacity factor (including the use of natural gas) should be 30 percent, Taylor claims. A wind farm in an ideal location (think Tehachapi) can have a factor of 40 percent. Photovoltaic plants generally are lower. A Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center study estimates a PV plant in Arizona should be closer to 20 percent.

Another useful metric is the delivered cost of electricity. BrightSource claims this measure makes Ivanpah “extremely competitive,” but declines to release figures to back up the claim. The calculation looks at plant output versus costs and factors in development and financing charges.

An examination of California Public Utilities Commission documents shows only that expected delivered costs are to be less than 12.5 cents a kWh. It doesn’t state how much less.

Nevertheless, Nathaniel Bullard, a solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, calculates that the cost of Ivanpah’s electricity will be lower than photovoltaic power and about the same as natural gas. Of course no one knows for sure until the plant is built. “We’ll see if they can meet the targets they have in place,” Bullard says.

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