Two dozen young engineers from California, dressed in hip designer blue jeans and sunglasses, gathered amid the solar array this week to inspect the site before it goes live.

Florida has never seen anything like this: vast fields of clean renewable energy drawing young people with high-paying, high-skilled jobs in an emerging industry.

Yet even as Florida Power & Light enters the renewable energy business with a splash — it is set to unveil the largest photovoltaic facility in the hemisphere on Tuesday — solar's future in Florida is in doubt. Many experts say the state lacks policies to sustain a long-term market and encourage investment.

Buck Martinez, FPL's chief solar booster, worries that the De Soto County plant may be an anomaly, a false start in the world race for new energy sources, because solar is expensive and utilities cannot recover their costs under current state laws.

“The time is now,” Martinez said. “We are ready to build solar facilities all over the state, but we need the right legislation.”

At a cost of $152 million for 25 megawatts of energy daily, the De Soto solar plant is pricey compared with natural gas or coal-fired power plants, and Florida's energy regulation system does not ensure utilities will be compensated for that extra cost.

In 2008, the Legislature, at Gov. Charlie Crist's urging, paved the way for Florida Power & Light to charge a small, one-time rate increase of about 31 cents per month for the average customer to build three solar test sites totaling 110 megawatts of energy — about one half of one percent of the total energy FPL produces.

Together, the three solar plants cost an estimated $700 million. The clean energy they will produce is the equivalent of taking 25,000 cars off the road.

But lawmakers have not approved a comprehensive renewable energy bill — called a renewable portfolio standard — that would provide clean energy quotas for electric companies and establish a formula to pass the cost on to ratepayers.

Without such legislation, Florida electric companies generally must seek out the cheapest energy with the least impact on ratepayers, a policy that puts the more expensive renewable energy sources at a disadvantage.

“You're not going to get any utility to invest because you can't recover all your costs,” Martinez said.

FPL owns nearly 13,000 acres in De Soto County alone. That is enough land for a solar array that could meet 10 percent of FPL's energy needs.

However, electricity rates could rise dramatically if the state allowed a flood of new solar developments, and legislators have been leery of heaping additional costs on consumers during a down economy.

Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, a top House leader, could not predict where the energy debate will lead next year, with complications such as proposals for Gulf oil drilling in the mix. Galvano and the House leadership declined to take action on the Senate's clean energy bill last year.

But Galvano said he would back renewable energy incentives if there are protections for ratepayers, such as a cap on how many solar projects could be built in a given year.

“In concept I support it, so long as we have safeguards,” Galvano said. “Any serious effort to move towards alternative energy should be embraced.”

Solar advocates say the economic benefits of jobs and a new industry for Florida outweigh the costs.

“You have FPL building a historic amount of renewable energy for Florida and then the market just stops and the jobs go away unless the Legislature does something to keep this going,” said Jerry Karnas, a Sarasota-based lobbyist with Environmental Defense.

Martinez noted that more than 400 workers were on the job at the high point of the nine-month construction project. They included an electrician from North Port, a construction manager from Sarasota and skilled construction workers from across the state.

North Port electrician Mike Stewart was unemployed for six months when his company closed in 2008. Stewart moved to Alaska to find work before seeing the FPL job on the Internet. Family members helped pay his mortgage.

“I really needed this job,” said the father of four.

The economic trickle-down has also been a boon to business owners such as Carl Wiley, who owns Wheeler's Cafe in Arcadia. Wiley said FPL workers boosted business by 35 percent over the last year. He catered barbecue lunches of pulled pork and baked beans for the workers and estimates his additional profit at $30,000.

“That's dramatic for me,” Wiley said.

But after construction is completed this month, FPL only needs one engineer to live on location and troubleshoot problems.

Most ongoing employment will come from FPL's contract with six groundskeepers to keep the grass trimmed around the solar panels and make sure animals like armadillos, bees, deer and wild hogs do not colonize the land, which also is replete with alligators and rattlesnakes.

The real clean-energy boon to Florida's economy would come from attracting California-based SunPower, which contracted with FPL to design and build the project, or other large companies.

SunPower sent dozens of engineers to Arcadia to live in hotels and supervise work.

If Florida adopted more solar incentives, SunPower and others could open Florida offices staffed with local engineers. Or Florida solar companies would expand to fill the need.

“Florida can be the leader; it just takes the right legislation,” said SunPower vice president of research and development Bill Mulligan.

Mulligan said Florida's market is large enough to lure a solar manufacturing facility with the right incentives.

“If the Legislature provides a long-term commitment to the solar market, then the state will start to grow the talent,” Karnas said.

But companies are now offering alternatives to these fixed installations, in the less conspicuous form of shingles, tiles and other building materials that have photovoltaic cells sealed within them.

“The new materials are part of the building itself, not an addition, and they are taking photovoltaics to the next level — an aesthetic one,” said Alfonso Velosa III, a research director at Gartner and co-author of a coming report on the market for the new field, called building-integrated photovoltaics.

Companies are creating solar tiles and shingles in colors and shapes that fit in, for example, with the terra cotta tile roofing popular in the Southwest, or with the gray shingles of coastal saltbox cottages.

SRS Energy of Philadelphia is making curved solar roofing tiles designed to blend in with Southern California’s traditional clay tiles, said Martin R. Low, the chief executive of SRS. A solar tile system that met half the power needs of a typical California home would cost roughly $20,000 to install after rebates, he estimated, or about 10 to 20 percent more than solar panels providing comparable power.

U.S. Tile of Corona, Calif., a maker of clay tiles, will be selling SRS’s Solé Power Tiles, initially in California, and then in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and other states, said Steve Gast, the company’s president. It will be taking orders perhaps as early as November for shipment in January, he said. SRS Energy buys the photovoltaic cells that cover its roofing from United Solar Ovonic, a maker of flexible solar modules that is based in Rochester Hills, Mich. SRS bonds the silicon cells to the curved Solé tiles, which are made of the same basic material as car bumpers, said J. D. Albert, director of engineering at SRS.

The cells have been installed at several demonstration sites, including a home in Bermuda Dunes, Calif. Rather than creating an entire new roof with the solar tiles, the homeowner, Bill Thomas, a roofing contractor, chose to insert them in his existing roof, replacing about 300 square feet of terra cotta tiles; the job took about four hours, he said.

The solar insert in the roof will generate about 2,400 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, enough to cover a quarter to a third of a typical electric bill, Mr. Albert of SRS said.

A different solar material for the roofs and sides of buildings is being produced by Global Solar Energy of Tucson, Ariz. Atomized layers of a photovoltaic coating called CIGS are deposited in layers on a thin sheet.

“We provide the film, and other companies like Dow take it and design it into a product,” said Timothy Teich, vice president for sales and marketing.

Crystalline photovoltaic cells, the same type as in fixed panel installations, are used within the ceramic tiles available from, among others, the Italian company System Photonics. The cells are held in place and sealed from moisture by a clear plastic protective layer made by DuPont, said Stephen L. Cluff, DuPont’s global business director for photovoltaic encapsulants. The tiles come in 13 colors.

Mr. Velosa said installation of built-in solar power was just starting in the United States, where the bulk of the installations were still experimental. But that will change, he said, because “we are seeing that the construction industry has realized that energy-efficient buildings are an opportunity for growth.”

Paul Markowitz, a senior analyst at NanoMarkets L.C., a research firm in Glen Allen, Va., agreed that the market for the building-integrated products looked promising. But he said that much would depend on when the construction and real estate markets began to recover. The best time to install the photovoltaics in terms of cost and design is during building construction, he said.

Akhil Sivanandan, a research analyst in Madras, India, for the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, said that government subsidies would speed adoption of building-integrated photovoltaics in the United States, as they already have in Europe.

“You need government incentives,” he said. “Even with drops in pricing and advances in technology, it is still too costly.”

In France, Germany and other countries, building-integrated solar markets are growing quickly because of subsidies and programs that pay homeowners for the electricity they generate and feed back to the power grid, he said.

“In Europe, building-integrated photovoltaics already make up about 3 to 4 percent of the total solar market,” Mr. Sivanandan said, adding that the incentives help homeowners in repaying the systems’ costs in five to seven years.

But one other quality will be crucial to the popularity of building-integrated solar cells, Mr. Velosa said.

“Aesthetics is key,” he observed. “They have to look good.”

This requires development of new materials and processing techniques as well as a better understanding of how OPVs work. However, while the number of researchers working in this field has increased rapidly in response to government and funding-body priorities, only relatively few groups master device fabrication with >4% efficiency. The problem becomes even more acute for new materials with unknown properties.

Over the last five years, many research groups³ have studied OPVs based on the polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and fullerene derivative phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). These materials can form an interpenetrating network of nanoscale domains. When incident light excites an electron-hole pair in the P3HT, the electron hops across to the PCBM because of its different electronic-energy levels. This produces separated charges that can be extracted at the device electrodes to generate electricity. Unfortunately, the low optical absorption of P3HT in the near-IR and poorly matched energy levels result in a fundamental limit to the power efficiency that can be obtained from P3HT/PCBM devices. Nevertheless, the amount of existing research on these materials and their commercial availability make them an excellent test system for OPV research.

Over the last year, we have invested significant effort into understanding and optimizing P3HT/PCBM thin-film device fabrication. Wide-ranging improvements have enabled us to produce consistently high-performing OPVs. In particular, we have optimized device efficiency by varying film thickness and exploring the effect of varying the relative ratio of P3HT and PCBM in the composite film. The P3HT/PCBM films are cast from solution, and so we looked at the type of solvent used for casting. We investigated different techniques to ‘grow’ a nanoscale-network-like structure of efficient charge-transporting pathways within the film, such as thermal annealing at various temperatures, and the use of a plasticizing solvent vapor to promote crystallization of the P3HT molecules. The latter technique increases hole mobility within the film and also extends the device sensitivity to red light.

We found P3HT ‘nanofibrils’ (self-assembled bundles of polymer chains) within the P3HT/PCBM films, which are associated with improved device efficiency. These nanofibrils grow over a period of hours in P3HT/PCBM solutions. Their presence suggests that optimized devices are best fabricated from ‘aged’ solutions. We also found that the thin layer of the high-workfunction conducting polymer PEDOT:PSS—poly(3,4)ethylenedioxythiophene / polystyrenesulfore—that is coated onto the indium tin oxide anode to improve hole extraction from the P3HT/PCBM film is not air stable at high humidity. As the polymer is applied using a water-based solution, this is a counter-intuitive result. This has been recognized previously,⁴ but it is not widely reported in the literature. Other key findings were that the type and grade of PCBM did not affect performance significantly, but the polymer's impurity content had a large effect. In addition, developing a robust encapsulation system for these laboratory-scale devices has made measurements significantly easier and also allowed us to demonstrate the use of OPVs as x-ray detectors⁵ with possible applications in large-area medical imaging.

Our work has led to the catalog spin-out company ‘Ossila,’ to supply a small but growing range of components to the organic-electronics research community. Ossila provides the metal-evaporation shadow masks used to define the OPV cathode stripes as well as newly developed glass substrates with pre-patterned ITO thin film, used as the OPV anode contact. We hope that Ossila will help others benefit from the efficiencies we have achieved.

Of course, there is still plenty of engineering left to be done, such as moving to flexible substrates and encapsulation systems, and exploring production techniques and vacuum-free cathode-deposition methods. Having a fully optimised P3HT/PCBM platform allows us to do this effectively and focus on more efficient materials. Indeed, recent reports² of OPVs with efficiencies greater than 6% suggest that using plastics to produce significant quantities of low-carbon power will increasingly become a commercial reality. Our most important result, however, has been to produce devices with 4.5% peak and 4.3% average efficiency. We can now screen new polymers more rapidly and with confidence in the accuracy of our results, and focus on the science rather than device engineering We are collaborating with chemists at the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester (UK) to test new plastics, including carbazole-based polymers and block copolymers.

In response to this market transformation, LDK will up its annual capacity of 5,000 tonnes of poly-Si to 15,000 tonnes with actual output expected at 10,000 tonnes as well as increasing solar wafer production from 1.6GWp to 2GWp by the end of 2009.

Best Solar, wholly owned company of Xiaofeng, which has a current annual capacity of 600-800MWp for PV modules, has caused the company focus on expanding to meet the expected surge in orders.

Best Solar has also set up two production lines of thin-film PV modules with a total capacity of 130MWp. Volume production will begin in November or December 2009, noted Xiaofeng.

The EPIA also voiced concerns that the proposal would not receive sufficient funding and is lobbying for more public money to be set aside to support the solar industry's growth.

The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled a new plan for achieving its greenhouse gas reduction goals and called for an additional €50 billion investment in research and development of renewable energy technologies over a 10-year period, including solar, wind, nuclear, carbon capture and storage.

For solar, the plan calls for supporting both new technologies that make use of solar panels (photovoltaics) as well as solar thermal equipment. Solar energy could make up 15 percent of the electricity supply within the European Union if €16 billion of the €50 billion goes to solar research (see the commission's technology plan).

For the photovoltaics development, the proposal calls for establishing a long-term research program, up to five pilot production plants for new technologies, and projects for centralized and distributed solar generation.

For the solar thermal power development, the proposal wants to finance up to 10 demonstration power plants, as well as to support research into storing power for use at night, cutting costs and boosting energy production.

The commission also proposed to add energy efficiency technologies to its technology plan. This new focus would start with a project called Smart Cities Initiative, which would involve up to 30 cities.

"Energy efficiency is the simplest and cheapest alternative to reduce CO2 and improve energy security. In transport, buildings and industry, available technology opportunities must be turned into business opportunities," the commission said on a FAQ page.

To boost funding to €50 billion would mean increasing the annual investment from €3 billion to €8 billion from 2010 to 2020, the commission said. The European Union has set a goal of reducing its emissions by 20 percent below the 1990 levels by 2020.

While the commission didn't spell out exactly where the new funding would come from, it expects the private sector to make the biggest contribution, followed by each member country's budget and European Union's own budget, reported Dow Jones Newswire.

But the EPIA, which represents companies that make solar panels and related components, said the commission should direct more support at deploying technologies that already are commercially available and making Europe the largest solar market in the world.

"The EC is putting too much emphasis on long-term research and should better recognise the need for accelerating the development of existing commercial and pre-commercial PV technologies," according to an EPIA statement. "Of course, long-term research should be carried out in parallel through other instruments."

The commission still needs to work with its member countries to decide on ways to fund the new plan. The EPIA said "large public funding" should be set aside for the plan, particularly given the economic downturn.

The EPIA also wants the commission to include solar in its Smart Cities initiative. 

That's exactly what Scott Brusaw of Sagle, Idaho–based Solar Roadways hopes to do next February. The electrical engineer is currently at work building a prototype of his so-called "Solar Road Panel" with the help of a $100,000 small business grant from the DoT.

"We're building solar panels that you can drive on," Brusaw says. "The fact that it's generating power means it pays for itself over time, as opposed to asphalt."

There are about 260,000 kilometers of roadway in the U.S. National Highway System alone, and thousands more in state highways, suburban thoroughfares and rural roads. Could all that asphalt be replaced with a solar technology that would also double as the nation's power grid?

The key to making this work will be the glass: The solar road panel prototype is 1,024 modules—each containing a solar cell, a light-emitting diode and, someday, an ultracapacitor for storage—sandwiched between a layer of some yet-to-be developed glass and a layer of conducting material. "Nobody's tried to drive on glass long-term," Brusaw says.

In addition to needing strength, this glass will be textured to allow tires to grip and water to run off. It will also be embedded with heating elements—like a car's rear windshield—to melt snow or ice. And it will need to be self-cleaning, coping with the grit and grime of an endless procession of tires as well as dust, dirt and other highway detritus. Needless to say, such glass does not exist yet but Brusaw hopes to partner with researchers at The Pennsylvania State University's Materials Research Institute to develop it.

"Glass theoretically can have a very high strength, provided there are no flaws," says materials scientist John Hellmann of Penn State, a glass expert. But "can you keep the proper optical properties to transmit light to the PV [photovoltaics, or solar cell] and still not weather or change with that traffic going over it? … We make some pretty doggone good glass for structural applications but we're not driving trucks on them."

The engineering challenges are immense, adds materials scientist Richard Brow of the Missouri University of Science and Technology, another glass expert. But glass can be strengthened by compressing its surface using special heating techniques or, at a molecular level, swapping ions in the glass itself. Such enhanced glass is 10 times stronger than the conventional variety and is used, for example, in smart phones to withstand the pressures of texting. "Can you go from a teenager's thumb to a truck? That's a pretty big leap, but 10 years ago we didn't think you could make a 15-micron piece of glass for what's relatively rough handling in a PDA," Brow says.

Glass has been used to build footbridges, such as the Chihuly Bridge of Glass in Tacoma, Wash. And new glass ceramic composites with increased toughness have been developed for the photovoltaics industry, Brow adds—but that might boost the price of the resulting panel.

In the meantime, Brusaw is spending $40,000 of the DoT's money to build a prototype from chemically hardened glass panels that can be purchased today. He will experiment with various types of solar cells, from thin-film to traditional monocrystalline silicon photovoltaics, and he will try to strike the right balance between transparency—so the panel works to deliver at least several thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity each day—and road-gripping texture, which will block some of the light. "If you have perfectly clear glass, you get perfect PV efficiency. But [with] perfectly smooth glass, everybody slips off the road," he notes. "Glass manufacturers can cut grooves into the glass in a hatch-type pattern. We'll try various methods and see what holds up."

Cost will be a factor: "The cost to develop a glass that will hold up in the fast lane of a highway? Fifteen [million] to 25 million dollars over three to five years," Brusaw says. "The cost in mass production? About $1 per square foot." The goal is to produce a 12-foot by 12-foot panel for $10,000 that is capable of producing 7,600 kilowatt-hours of electricity daily, enough per panel for more than 240 average U.S. homes, which use 936 kilowatt-hours per month, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In addition to requiring a yet-to-be-invented form of glass, solar roadways would need some form of energy-storage capability—whether batteries or some not-yet-devised ultracapacitor. The goal is to create a cross-country highway system that can also serve as an national electricity generator and power grid. And paired with wind turbines to generate electricity at night, Brusaw estimates replacing the nation's highways with his solar roadways could eliminate the need for fossil fuel–fired power plants. "Based on my calculations, at 15 percent efficiency [from the photovoltaics] we produce more than three times the electricity we have ever produced," he says. Even with cars constantly casting shade over the road surface, along with other challenges, "we think we can make enough to meet the nation's energy needs," he adds.

Other companies, such as the England's Invisible Heating Systems, have developed roads that use embedded water pipes to harvest some of the sun's ample energy that also bathes U.S. roads.

The solar roadway will also offer embedded LEDs to illuminate the road and display information, whether the actual traffic directions, such as lane markers, or messages such as "SLOW DOWN." And, should electric cars become popular, powered pavement could also offer recharging stations wherever such panels are installed.

The first test of Brusaw's crystalline vision will be when the prototype is delivered to the DoT on February 12, 2010. And the DoT's challenges will be followed by some durability testing by the inventor with a pickax, sledgehammer and, depending on the prototype's fortitude, guns. Then it's on to parking lots and perhaps fast food restaurants. "Parking lots are much better than going right out onto the highway," Brusaw says. "You have slow-moving, lightweight vehicles. We can learn all the lessons there before moving into the fast lane."

BP Solar’s Mono2™ production process delivers a promising new wafer platform for solar cells with the potential to become a low-cost alternative to the more expensive Czochralski silicon substrates because it combines extremely low defect densities and high conversion efficiencies with production costs that are comparable to the costs of traditional multicrystalline substrates. The production of Mono2™ involves a proprietary growth nucleation process for the casting of ingots used to produce single crystal bricks and wafers whereby preferred crystallographic orientations can be achieved. This feature allows further improvement in cell efficiencies. BP Solar’s Mono2™ was developed with support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Technologies Pathways Partnership. 

IMEC’s cell production process is feasible as an industrial production process as it only adds three processing steps to the standard industrially applied process of full aluminum back surface field. 

IMEC’s solar cells are 130µm thick and cover an area of 156mmx156mm. Using IMEC’s advanced processes such as dielectric passivation and a localized back surface field, a conversion efficiency of 18% for the new low-cost Mono2™ silicon solar cells, which is in the range of the current commercial solar cells, has been demonstrated with a dramatic reduction in cell thickness. 

Jef Poortmans, Program Director Photovoltaics said, “IMEC’s photovoltaic research aims towards a sharp reduction in production cost and at the same time an increase of the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells. Our partners can leverage our advanced processing techniques, to create high-efficiency low-cost solar cells based on their proprietary high-quality materials and knowhow.” 

Eric Daniels, BP Solar’s vice president, global technology said “BP Solar is working to leverage such key technology developments to further reduce the cost of PV electricity. Working with R&D centers such as IMEC and key customers, we are commercializing this technology and seek to provide a better platform for the current and next generation solar cells. This collaboration with IMEC represents significant progress towards that goal.” 

About IMEC 
IMEC performs world-leading research in nanotechnology. IMEC leverages its scientific knowledge with the innovative power of its industrial partners. In ICT, healthcare and energy, IMEC delivers industry-relevant technology solutions. In a unique high-tech environment, IMEC’s international top talent is committed to providing the building blocks for a better life in a sustainable society. 

IMEC is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, US, China and Japan. Its staff of more than 1,650 people include over 550 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2008, IMEC's revenue (P&L) was 270 million euro. 

About BP Solar 
BP Solar, part of BP Alternative Energy, is a global company with about 2,200 employees. BP Solar designs, manufactures and markets products which use the sun's energy to generate electricity for use in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors. With over 35 years of experience and installations in most countries, BP Solar is one of the world's leading solar companies having manufacturing plants in: Xi’an, China; Bangalore, India; and Frederick, MD, USA. BP Solar invests more than $10M annually in photovoltaic research and development. 

"We are already seeing significant market opportunities [in Southeast Asia] for our cutting-edge solar PV modules. Our decision to go with the clear market leader, Oerlikon Solar, is already paying dividends," says Ma Wenxue, General Manager, Baoding Tianwei SolarFilms Co.

"[This agreement] demonstrates both the rapidly-growing market for solar energy in the Asian market and the advantages offered by our own fast-ramp thin-film PV production technology," adds Jeannine Sargent, CEO, Oerlikon Solar.

At Tianwei SolarFilms, Oerlikon Solar has installed its amorph HIGH PERFORMANCE, a technology using a special high-performance front and back contact method in its production lines. A low pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) process is used to generate a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer, which is superior to conventional methods, according to Oerlikon Solar.

The light transmission and scattering properties of this layer are very important to achieve the efficiency with which the solar module is able to convert sunlight into electrical energy.

The NanoPV R&D team comprises some 15 researchers and Ph.D. students from Total and the CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique joint research unit. It is based on the Ecole Polytechnique campus in the Saclay area near Paris, home to France’s nanotechnology expertise cluster. Total will provide resources and funding of approximately €8 million during the initial four-year phase. The research program will develop silicon thin film technologies and explore new concepts using silicon nanowires. The primary focus of the research is to reduce the cost of solar energy to step up its deployment. 

When signing the partnership agreement, Philippe Boisseau, President, Total Gas & Power, said: “This agreement with an internationally recognized laboratory is a further step in Total’s commitment to new energy R&D. With this undertaking, Total is also supporting the strategic project to create a world-class French science and technology cluster in the Saclay area south of Paris.” 

“The creation of the joint R&D team is the culmination of 20 years of work on plasma synthesis and thin film and nanomaterial characterization for photovoltaic solar cells,” commented Bernard Drévillon, Head of LPICM. “Photovoltaic solar energy has been the core focus of R&D at the lab under the leadership of research director Pere Roca. Cooperation with Total, a global energy producer and provider, paves the way for practical applications for LPICM’s work.” 

Total and Solar Energy 
Total has been active in solar energy since 1983 through its interest in two companies, Tenesol and Photovoltech. Photovoltech, produces photovoltaic cells based on a crystalline silicon technology and Tenesol, specializes in designing, manufacturing, marketing and operating photovoltaic energy systems. 

In December 2008, Total became a core industrial shareholder in US startup Konarka, specialized in organic photovoltaic technology after Total Gas & Power USA (SAS) recently underwrote a share issue to acquire a stake slightly less than 20%. 

Total Research & Development 
Total’s R&D activities are designed to continuously improve energy-related processes. They focus on knowledge of energy resources to optimize their development, operational reliability and energy efficiency, competitive products, and environmental issues. With an R&D budget of €770 million in 2009, Total has 22 R&D centers and more than 4,000 researchers worldwide. The Group also has more than 600 partnership agreements with dedicated research organizations, universities and leading manufacturers. 

About LPICM 
Since its creation in 1986, Laboratoire de Physique des Interfaces et des Couches Minces (LPICM), a joint R&D venture between the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and France’s prestigious Ecole Polytechnique engineering school, has conducted a broad range of basic and applied research, spanning the physical chemistry of reactive plasma to the electronic properties of components made from this material, such as diodes and transistors. 

In the area of photovoltaics, LPICM initially concentrated on plasma synthesis for thin silicon films used to manufacture cells. More recently, its focus has shifted to amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunctions and silicon nanowire-based cells. 

Ecole Polytechnique 
France’s forefront Ecole Polytechnique engineering school allies R&D, teaching and innovation across the spectrum of science and technology and has an international reach, with 30% of its students and 18% of its faculty drawn from outside France. In 2008, it placed thirty-fourth in The Times Higher Education Supplement ranking of the top 200 world universities. 

Its curriculum promotes excellence in science, with a strong humanist component. Offering undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees, it produces responsible graduates proficient in the complex, innovative domains that hold the keys to meeting the challenges of twenty-first century society. 

The Ecole Polytechnique R&D center can leverage 21 laboratories run jointly with the CNRS to push back the boundaries of knowledge as they explore major cross-disciplinary scientific, technological and social challenges. Climate, energy, the environment and sustainable development are core focuses, with LPICM making a significant contribution in the field of photovoltaic cells. 

R&D and education drive both innovation and technological development. Ties with large and mid-sized businesses are being stepped up, with €14 million in research contracts, medium-term partnerships in the form of 19 corporate-funded chairs, and long-term projects involving the creation of joint R&D teams with companies such as Total. In addition, various companies, including Danone, Thalès and Horiba, have established research centers on its campus. Lastly, a business incubator nurtures projects devised by labs and startups that rely on the center’s expertise as they find their feet. 

Ecole Polytechnique is a member of the ParisTech R&D and higher education cluster, which brings together 12 prestigious Paris area universities and schools to promote excellence worldwide. It is also a driving force behind the Saclay campus project, in which it is teamed with 20 other academic and scientific partners, including ParisTech. 

CNRS 
Established in 1939, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) is a government-funded research organization to advance knowledge and serve society. The center has more than 32,000 people on staff, of which 11,600 researchers; a 2008 budget of €3.277 billion, of which an endowment of €588 million; and campuses across France. It is active across all the sciences, leveraging more than 1,200 research and service units. As France’s leading multidisciplinary research organization, its scope encompasses such disciplines as mathematics, physics, information science and technology and engineering, nuclear physics and particle physics, cosmology, chemistry and life sciences, as well as the humanities, social sciences and environmental science. It is also assertively committed to partnerships, especially with business, as evidenced by 3,103 patents at end-2007, of which 295 were filed in 2008; 729 active licenses at end-2007; 1,680 industrial contracts signed in 2007; and 394 innovative startups created since 1999, including 37 in 2008 alone. 

The baseline requirements include specifying the high-quality surface finish, visual inspection criteria and particle counts the PV industry needs to maintain reliability and process control for improved uptime, while identifying areas (such as work area classification, analytics, and packaging) where costs can be contained.

Swagelok® products are designed to provide reliable, leak-tight performance in critical PV manufacturing processes, such as Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) and diffusion. These and other processes require low leak rates for safety, control of process gas purity, as well as precise delivery of gases to maintain cell integrity and reduce scrap.

The Swagelok Photovoltaic Process Specification (SC-06) is an available option for many Swagelok high-purity products, in place of the company’s other specifications: SC-01 (Ultrahigh-purity Process), SC-10 (Standard Cleaning and Packaging), and SC-11 (Special Cleaning and Packaging).

The products currently available with SC-06 processing include DP and DPH springless diaphragm valves, HB and BN series bellows valves, CW series check valves, VCR® metal gasket face seal fittings, and Micro-Fit® miniature tube butt weld fittings. To download the SC- 06 specification, please visit www.swagelok.com/solar.

Honeywell (NYSE:HON) Electronic Materials announced today a new material that improves the efficiency and power output of photovoltaic (PV) panels.

The new product, called Honeywell SOLARC, is a transparent coating material that improves the light transmittance through the glass that covers PV panels, thus increasing the PV module efficiency and power output. This coating also significantly reduces glare from the glass, allowing the PV panels to better blend with its surroundings.

"SOLARC has already demonstrated the highest efficiency of any anti-reflective coatings, or ARCs, commercially available today," said Dmitry Shashkov, marketing director for Honeywell Electronic Materials. "This is another example of Honeywell applying its materials expertise, developed from 50 years of innovation for the semiconductor industry, to meet the challenges of the PV industry."

Most commercially available PV panels today lose approximately 4 percent of their potential power output due to light reflection from the front surface of the cover glass. In addition to the decreased electricity generation, the glare from the reflection light is considered aesthetically undesirable, especially in residential rooftop installations.

SOLARC coating reduces reflection significantly, resulting in more light reaching the solar cell, which translates into higher electricity output. While use of such anti-reflective coating is relatively low in the PV industry today, it is widely expected to become the industry norm over the next few years, according to the major PV manufacturers.

Honeywell's SOLARC, which is a liquid-based coating, can be used by all common types of PV modules. However, it provides the most benefits to rooftop installations, where space is limited and any increase in efficiency is critical. Because SOLARC coating reduces glare from the glass, it also contributes to a discreet, blend-in look of residential PV panels that has become very desirable to consumers installing the panels.

The coating is compatible with many coating processes, including spray, roller, curtain, slot-die and spin-on coating. Unlike other commercially available ARC's, Honeywell SOLARC does not require mixing of two components prior to deposition, and has at least a six month shelf life.

Demonstrating a 4 percent increase in transmission at 550 nanometers, Honeywell's SOLARC has demonstrated a very good response across a broad solar spectrum that is relevant for PV cell operation, from 350 nanometers through 1,100 nanometers. SOLARC coating has also demonstrated superior durability in a broad variety of accelerated tests designed to imitate harsh environmental conditions to which a PV panel is likely to be exposed during its lifetime.

Furthermore, environmental testing of SOLARC coating has shown that it provides additional protection to the glass, especially under hot and humid conditions that may lead to gradual glass deterioration. The coating has been further optimized to enable anti-soiling and self-cleaning functionality that prevents dust accumulation. This represents another valuable property of SOLARC, as solar panels lose on average 7 percent of their power output due to particulate contamination, according to the California Energy Commission.

Honeywell's SOLARC is based on proprietary technology and is validated by strong internal development processes and recognized industry test methods and laboratories.

The release of SOLARC coating further broadens Honeywell's portfolio of materials for the PV industry, which already includes backing sheet laminates, dopants, solar-grade electronic chemicals, and precision thermocouples. For more information, please visit: http://www.honeywell.com/eupvsec.

Honeywell Specialty Materials is a global leader in providing customers with high-performance specialty materials, including fluorine products; specialty films and additives; advanced fibers and composites; intermediates; specialty chemicals; electronic materials and chemicals; and technologies and materials for petroleum refining.

Honeywell International (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes and industry; automotive products; turbochargers; and specialty materials. Based in Morris Township, N.J., Honeywell's shares are traded on the New York, London, and Chicago Stock Exchanges. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywellnow.com.

During the 24th EU PVSEC, many new trends and developments in PV were presented and up for discussion. Among the many topics covered, the debate centred on new cell concepts for the future, increased automation in production, and standardisation. New manufacturing processes and production machinery for silicon and thin-film technology were showcased on the 65,000 sqm exhibition area. Numerous exhibitors even displayed entire production lines, some of them operating. Cutting-edge measurement and control equipment for quality assurance in cell manufacturing was also unveiled. Production samples of large panels of glass with a photovoltaic finish illustrated the rapid advances being made in the field of thin-film solar technology.

In parallel with the exhibition, the international scientific conference of the 24th EU PVSEC also attracted 4,295 delegates, attracted by a broad spectrum of topics spanning every area of photovoltaics. David Nelson, Senior Partner and Head of Design at Foster + Partners, London (England), gave the keynote speech entitled "Sustainability and the Future of the City". Nelson presented his thoughts on the objectives of responsible architectural planning, making reference to the new zero-emissions Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. He illustrated how the idea of sustainability in architecture still harbours immense potential.

The PV Policy Debate focusing on the "EU Renewable Energy Directive" on 22 September marked another highlight of the 24th EU PVSEC. The international panel discussed the impact of the "EU Renewable Energy Directive" on the European PV industry and on PV markets. A lively debate including high-ranking specialists from throughout the European Union and the USA was chaired by Roger Harrabin, Environment Analyst for BBC News.

12% of electricity market share in Europe by 2020

In the course of the 24th EU PVSEC, the 6th European PV Industry Forum on 23 September presented the results of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association’s and AT Kearney’s study ‘SET for 2020’. The study establishes a vision for the industry to achieve a market share of up to 12% in the electricity sector in Europe by 2020. Michael Splinter of Applied Materials gave the industry perspective on this goal and Hans-Josef Fell, Member of the German Bundestag, discussed the feed-in-tariff’s decisive contribution to the development of PV. Interesting presentations on the topic were also given by the key stakeholders outside of the PV community. Moving towards smart cities, designing smart grids, the role of energy storage and the breakthroughs in electric vehicles were all emphasized as areas where the PV industry should work together in close collaboration with the other relevant industries to achieve this 2020 goal.

All areas of PV were covered in more than 1,300 plenary and specialist presentations as well as visual poster presentations. Papers on the new organic photovoltaic cells generated particular interest.

Prof. Wim Sinke, from the ECN Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, acted as General Conference Chairman, comments: “This 24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition was held at the right moment in time and has generated important messages for the PV sector itself, for governments working on their national action plans to reach the EU 2020 targets and for society as a whole. There is not a trace of doubt that PV solar energy is crucial for the transition to a sustainable energy system. Globally, on a European level, and on country level. It is not just a long term option, but a short term reality which should have a clear position in these action plans. To contribute to the 2020 targets and to lay the foundation for much bigger contributions after that. I am convinced that the problems the PV sector faces at this moment are no more than ripples on a robust trend of growth for decades to come.”

Dr. Peter Helm, Executive Conference Director stated: "Photovoltaics has ample scope for development. In fact, it is still in its infancy. Over the next few years we will see the appearance of cell concepts offering much higher performance. The research results are quite clear about that.. The 24th EU PVSEC is the most important international platform for presenting and discussing such developments."

In his speech to the Closing Session of the 24th EU PVSEC, Dr. Heinz Ossenbrink of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and Technical Programme Chairman, emphasized the progress PV technologies have demonstrated during this Conference. “The costs will continue to decrease with the results achieved in terms of processing, material consumption, high and volume manufacturing equipment. There also is a very dynamic and innovative community presenting entirely new concepts and announcing new technology start-ups. In the upcoming 12 months until the next EU PVSEC many unknowns of this week, such as the impact of Europe’s Renewably Energy Directive, the financial crisis, commitment to CO2 reductions or even changed governments will have a major impact on the progress of PV solar energy.“

New format in 2010

The Conference Executive Committee of the 24th EU PVSEC announced during the event that next year's 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition will be a joint Conference with the 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion. The 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion will unite the three most important scientific and strategic conferences for the global PV solar sector: the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, the 36th US IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference and the 20th Asia/Pacific PV Science and Engineering Conference.

The joint event will take place in Valencia (Spain) from 6-10 September 2010 (Conference: 6-10 September 2010, Exhibition: 6-9 September 2010).

SolFocus partnered with developer Dreen Europe Re-energy on the project. A test array was installed in 2009 in one of Dreen's Europe facilities, to allow the utility to gain experience and understanding of the SolFocus CPV technology. Project deployment will begin in early 2010 for the first 2 MW, with the balance of the project deployed in phases over the next four years.

"As global delegates consider climate goals at the upcoming Copenhagen climate discussions, this agreement comes at a critical time for delivering low-cost solar energy to progressive markets like Portugal," said SolFocus CEO and president Mark Crowley. "The high energy generation capability of the iconic SolFocus CPV systems, which convert sunlight to electricity at over 25 percent efficiency, result in a good solution for ADP today. Now one of the largest CPV projects in Europe, this project puts Portugal on a steep trajectory of driving energy costs down at a very rapid rate."

"ADP is very committed to renewable energy for the country as is evidenced by our significant investment over the upcoming years in many renewable technologies," explained Antonio Branco board member for ADP. "We believe that investing in new and disruptive technologies such as SolFocus CPV is key to driving the global initiative for higher renewable energy usage."

The SolFocus CPV design employs a system of reflective optics to concentrate sunlight 650 times onto small, highly efficient triple junction solar cells. The SolFocus 1100S uses approximately 1/1,000th of the active, expensive solar cell material compared to traditional silicon based photovoltaic panels. In addition, the cells used in SolFocus CPV systems have over twice the efficiency of traditional silicon cells. In high solar regions such as Portugal, such efficiency can accelerate the trajectory for solar energy to reach grid parity with fossil fuels.

SolFocus integrates the CPV panels with its advanced tracking system that continuously aligns the solar array with direct sunlight throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky. The tracking capability of the SolFocus 1100S results in energy generation ideally matched to peak demand periods.

About SolFocus

The SolFocus mission is to enable solar energy generation at a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) competitive with traditional fossil fuel sources. To achieve this goal, SolFocus has developed leading concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) technology which combines high-efficiency solar cells (approaching 40 percent) and advanced optics to provide solar energy solutions which are scalable, dependable and capable of delivering on the promise of clean, low-cost, renewable energy. SolFocus is headquartered in Mountain View, California with European operations headquartered in Madrid, Spain, and manufacturing in Mesa, Arizona as well as with manufacturing partners in India and China.

About ADP

Aguas de Portugal is a leading group operating in the environmental sector in Portugal with a mission of contributing to the pursuit of national objectives in water supply, wastewater sanitation and treatment, and urban waste recovery and disposal, within a framework of economic, financial, technical, social and environmental sustainability.

ADP's goal is to protect and value the natural and human environment: the activities of ADP's companies include water collection, treatment, storage and supply while following the highest of quality patterns; collection, treatment and disposal of urban and industrial wastewater, including its recycling and reuse in an environmental safe manner; and waste treatment and recovery.

Sustainable use and preservation of natural resources, equilibrium and improvement of the quality of the environment, equity in access to public services and the promotion of well-being and people's standards of living are fundamental values to ADP Group.

About Dreen Europe

Dreen Europe is a Portuguese Group with a mission to promote economically and environmentally sustainable projects and solutions in centralised and decentralised markets in the areas of renewable energies and renewable water (recycling, reuse and desalinisation of water), thus creating differentiated value for its clients, shareholders, collaborators and countries where it develops its activity. Dreen owns 100 percent of De Viris, Natura e Ambiente SA, whose purpose and mission is: creation, construction and installation (turnkey method), management, operation and maintenance of integrated systems that promote the sustainability of energy and water resources, with the use of renewable energies (solar photovoltaic and thermal, wind, geothermal, etc.) and renewable water (recycling, reuse and desalinisation).

The thesis of “Global Solar Power: Solar Eclipsed?” is straightfoward: The supply glut that has plagued the sector all year will persist until 2012. That will keep pushing prices down—bad news for corporate profits, good news for the sector as a whole as it becomes more competitive with traditional sources of power generation.

HSBC’s winners include Yingli Green Power, Sharp, Solar World, and REC. The bank doesn’t care as much for Suntech Power and LDK, among many others.

What’s really interesting about HSBC’s new report is how solar power stacks up today against other ways of generating electricity—it doesn’t. That is, all the other power-generation technologies are in roughly the same neighborhood, even wind power—but not solar.

For instance, HSBC estimates costs per megawatt for different options: Combined-cycle gas, 43 euros; regular coal, 62 euros; onshore wind, 58 euros; nuclear power, 48 euros; geothermal, 43 euros. Photovoltaic solar power costs 290 euros per megawatt; concentrated solar power 181 euros.

Or put another way: What price would oil or gas have to be for each technology to be break-even without subsidies, using combined-cycle gas turbines as the low-cost yardstick?

Geothermal is the cheapest: It is competitive with natural gas at $5.16 per million BTUs or oil at $57 a barrel. Nuclear power breaks even at $6.26 and $69.

Traditional, onshore wind power breaks even with gas at $8.33 or oil at $92. Offshore wind still needs a push: It requires gas at $17.14 or oil at $189.

In contrast, solar thermal needs to see natural gas at $35.66 or oil at $393. And good old photovoltaic solar, like the kind on rooftops? Natural gas needs to be at $59.61 or oil at $657 a barrel.

Quick reality check: Gas today is at $3.93 and oil is at $66.

That’s not to say there’s no hope for solar power. There’s always the government.

Thanks to price supports, HSBC expects solar power to reach retail “grid parity” in some places—California and New York—as soon as next year. That means solar power will generate electricity that’s competitive with what you pay on your bill every month. It will take another five years or so for solar to reach wholesale grid parity—when it becomes a no-brainer investment for big utilities.

Carrizo Energy Solar Farm on the Carrizo Plain of eastern San Luis Obispo County, another solar-thermal plant with a proposed generating capacity of 177 megawatts.

Topaz Solar Farm, also proposed on the Carrizo Plain, using photovoltaic cells to generate 550 megawatts.

High Plains Ranch II, yet another Carrizo Plain proposal, which would have photovoltaic cells mounted on supports that would track the sun to produce 210 megawatts.

And a proposal by Solaren Inc.(a different company than Solargen) to use satellites in space to collect sunlight and beam 200 megawatts of power to earth as radio frequencies to a site in western Fresno County.

Source: California Energy Commission

What they generate

Solargen Energy Inc. is proposing solar farms in Fresno and San Benito counties with a combined capacity of 1,250 megawatts, or 1.25 gigawatts, of electricity.

How do other central California power sources compare?

Friant Dam hydroelectric powerhouse, north of Fresno, 25 megawatts.

Pine Flat Dam hydroelectric powerhouse, east of Fresno, 165 megawatts.

Big Creek hydroelectric facilities near Shaver Lake, 1,000 megawatts, or 1 gigawatt.

Morro Bay Power Plant, fueled by gas, 650 megawatts.

Moss Landing Power Plant, fueled by gas, 2.5 gigawatts.

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Avila Beach, 2.2 gigawatts.

How much is that?

How many customers can a solar power plant serve? It's a tricky question. Solar panels only produce electricity during the daylight hours; and power production is rated in megawatts, but customer use is calculated in kilowatt-hours. Any translation is imprecise, but experts variously estimate that one megawatt of electricity can meet the needs of between 500 and 800 homes.

About SolarWorld AG

The SolarWorld AG group of companies (ISIN: DE0005108401) is a world leader in high-quality solar power technology. The company is exclusively dedicated to its core business of photovoltaic power generation and combines all activities of the solar industry from silicon as the raw material to turn-key solar power systems including recycling. SolarWorld is represented in all the world’s solar growth markets and predominantly produces in Germany and the USA. Its largest sites are located in Freiberg, Saxony, and Hillsboro, USA. The central group office is in Bonn. Worldwide sales of solar modules are secured by five sales offices in Germany, Spain, USA, South Africa and Singapore. The central element of the business in addition to the sale of turn-key solar systems and solar modules to the trade is the distribution of solar silicon wafers to the international solar cell industry. Apart from grid-coupled (on-grid) products, the SolarWorld Group sells off-grid solar power solutions. Under the name Solar2World the Group takes its ethical commitment to fair development also to emerging economies and developing countries, promoting in particular off-grid solar power solutions exemplary of sustainable economic development.

Sustainability is an integral element of SolarWorld’s corporate strategy. The corporate management is committed to sustainable, economically, ecologically and socially compatible growth. SolarWorld AG employs more than 2,500 people worldwide. The company is listed at the stock market, among others in the technology index TecDAX, in the ÖkoDAX, in the Dow Jones STOXX 600, in the international MSCI-Index and in the sustainability indices DAXglobal Alternative Energy and NAI.

Contact SolarWorld AG

Contact Investor Relations: Phone: +49 228/55920-470, E-Mail: placement(at)solarworld.de
Fax: 0228/55920-9470

Contact Press: Phone: +49 228/55920-400, E-Mail: press(at)solarworld.de

Internet: www.solarworld.de

Other key findings of the report:

• In 2008, China became the leading producer of solar cells with an annual production of about 2.4 GW, followed by Europe with 1.9 GW, Japan with 1.2 GW and Taiwan with 0.8 GW. It this trend continues, China might have about 32% of the world-wide production capacity by 2012.
• An increasing number of producers are entering the market, therefore, the market share of the ten largest PV manufacturers decreased from 80% in 2004 to 50% in 2008.
• In 2008, thin-film solar modules have reached 12-14% of the market share.
• Concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) is an emerging market with approximately 17MW cumulative installed capacity in 2008.

The shallow emitter results in an enhanced blue response, and thus in a higher conversion efficiency than with a standard emitter. For the front contacts, a novel metallization stack is added which is applied to local openings in the antireflective coating. Dr. Joachim John, team manager at IMEC: “Using copper instead of silver adds to the sustainability of solar cell production. IMEC was able to do this because it has extensive experience with copper plating on silicon”. A similar efficiency result was obtained with screen printed contacts, but the long-term sustainability and low-cost potential of Cu-based contacting solutions and the fact that this was a first result obtained without dedicated fine-tuning makes this result particularly encouraging. ”

Dr. Jef Poortmans, IMEC's Photovoltaics Program Director, states “These cells and the new metallization stack involved are a further successful step in IMEC's target to develop ever more cost-effective, efficient crystalline Si solar cells – eventually targeting cells that are only 40µm thick with efficiencies above 20%.

IMEC is a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. IMEC is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, US, China and Japan. Its staff of more than 1,650 people include over 550 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2008, IMEC's revenue (P&L) was 270 million euro.

IMEC's More Moore research targets semiconductor scaling for the 22nm technology node and beyond. With its More than Moore research, IMEC invents technology for nomadic embedded systems, wireless autonomous transducer solutions, biomedical electronics, photovoltaics, organic electronics and GaN power electronics.

IMEC's research bridges the gap between the fundamental research at universities and R&D in the industry. It has unique processing and system know-how, intellectual property portfolio, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and a strong and worldwide network position. This makes IMEC a key partner for shaping the technology of the future.

Air Liquide will now build a large dedicated on-site production unit – due to start up in 2010 to serve all customers in this high technology park. The particularly energy efficient unit, built to accommodate increasing demand from all solar cell manufacturers located in Thalheim, will ultimately produce more than 38,000 tons per year of nitrogen and represents an investment of around €10 million.

It will notably ensure the nitrogen supply for Calyxo GmbH, a subsidiary of Q-Cells, one of the leaders in photovoltaics worldwide, as well as for a subsidiary of Sunfilm AG (former Sontor GmbH), and for Q-Cells AG.

Guy Salzgeber, Vice-President European Industrial Business and member of the Air Liquide Executive Committee, commented: "By combining the needs of the major companies and investing in a single large unit, we are pleased of being able to offer a very energy effective and flexible solution for the nitrogen consumption of customers in Thalheim.
These new long term agreements with PV market leaders and the new unit to come confirm the success of our global solar offer as well as illustrate our commitment to this fast changing industry and specifically to this major site for the development of the photovoltaic industry in Germany. The photovoltaic business is at the crossroads of Energy and the Environment, two growth drivers for the Air Liquide Group”.

The use of gases in the photovoltaic industry

Gases are used at all stages of solar cells manufacturing process:

• to produce Poly-Silicium: high-volume of nitrogen (N2) and hydrogen (H2)
• to produce Si wafers: large quantities of nitrogen, argon (Ar) and helium (He)
• to produce crystalline-Si cells: carrier gas (N2) & specialty gases such as silane (SiH4), ammonia (NH3)
• to produce Si Thin Film cells: carrier gases (N2, H2), specialty gases (SiH4, NF3, dopant mixtures) and coating precursor materials.

Air Liquide (Paris:AI) is the world leader in gases for industry, health and the environment, and is present in over 75 countries with 43,000 employees. Oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and rare gases have been at the core of Air Liquide’s activities since its creation in 1902. Using these molecules, Air Liquide continuously reinvents its business, anticipating the needs of current and future markets. The Group innovates to enable progress, to achieve dynamic growth and a consistent performance.

Air Liquide combines many products and technologies to develop valuable applications and services not only for its customers but also for society. Innovative technologies that curb polluting emissions, lower industry’s energy use, recover and reuse natural resources or develop the energies of tomorrow, such as hydrogen, biofuels or photovoltaic energy… Oxygen for hospitals, homecare, fighting nosocomial infections…

A partner for the long term, Air Liquide relies on employee commitment, customer trust and shareholder support to pursue its vision of sustainable, competitive growth. The diversity of Air Liquide’s teams, businesses, markets and geographic presence provides a solid and sustainable base for its development and strengthens its ability to push back its own limits, conquer new territories and build its future.

Air Liquide explores the best that air can offer to preserve life, staying true to its sustainable development approach. In 2008, the Group’s revenues amounted to €13.1 billion, of which almost 80% were earned outside France. Air Liquide is listed on the Paris Euronext stock exchange (compartment A) and is a member of the CAC 40 and Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 indexes.

The systems, including a new 25-megawatt (MW) photovoltaic (PV) array and a 5-MW concentrating solar power (CSP) plant, are expected to be completed by January 2012. TEP has agreed to purchase power from both systems, which will be privately owned and operated.

"These new systems will exponentially expand our community`s solar energy resources, helping us reduce our use of fossil fuels while taking a significant step toward achieving our renewable energy goals," said Paul Bonavia, Chairman, President and CEO of TEP and its parent company, UniSource Energy (NYSE: UNS).

The 25 MW PV array, which will be owned and operated by the global solar company Fotowatio Renewable Ventures, will feature ground-mounted solar panels that rotate along a single axis to track the sun`s movement through the sky, increasing the system`s energy output. The array is expected to produce enough energy to power more than 4,600 typical Tucson homes while avoiding the production of more than 48,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year.

"We`re delighted to be working with Tucson Electric Power," said Matt Cheney, CEO of Fotowatio Renewable Ventures. "Tucson Electric Power is recognized as a worldwide leader in solar energy development. It`s a visionary utility that`s developing a cost-effective, diversified energy portfolio that demonstrates a strong commitment to the environment. We look forward to working with TEP and the Tucson community on the development of this significant solar power system."

The 25-MW array will be nearly twice as large as a 14-MW system at Nevada`s Nellis Air Force Base that currently ranks as the nation`s largest solar power system. TEP`s 4.6-MW PV array in Springerville currently ranks as Arizona`s largest solar array, while the largest local system is a TEP-subsidized 750-kilowatt array at Global Solar Energy, a manufacturer of thin-film PV material. The systems at Nellis Air Force Base and Global Solar Energy are also owned and operated by Fotowatio Renewable Ventures.

The other solar project announced today, the 5-MW CSP plant, will be the first system of its kind in the Tucson area. The facility will use rows of parabolic troughs and a heat-transfer and storage system to create pressurized vapor that will be used to drive a turbine. The system is expected to produce enough energy to power more than 1,500 typical Tucson homes while offsetting more than 16,000 tons of CO2.

"We are excited about demonstrating how the Bell Energy Storage Technology (BEST) system, in conjunction with a parabolic trough CSP plant, can make solar power a more dependable and reliable energy source," said Joseph M. Bell, Jr., President of Bell Independent Power Corp. (Bell IPC), which will develop, own and operate the CSP plant.

Bell IPC`s BEST system has been designed to make concentrating solar technology operate more efficiently and economically. The proprietary thermal storage system will be capable of storing the sun`s heat for several hours, allowing the CSP plant to generate power into the early evening or after the sun ducks behind clouds.

"The pioneering storage technology that will be built into this new CSP plant has the potential to make solar energy even more valuable for TEP and other utilities," Bonavia said. "If it proves successful, it could lead to the development of similar systems on a much larger scale."

Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO) has been working with Bell IPC to identify a site for the plant. TREO has actively promoted the Tucson area as an ideal location for new solar generation projects as part of its overall economic development activities in the region.

The CSP plant`s performance could be compared to the results of Tucson`s proposed Bright Tucson project, which would test the effectiveness of several alternative storage systems in managing the output of a new 1.6 MW PV array. TEP announced earlier this month that it is seeking $25 million in federal stimulus funds for the project.

TEP has signed contracts to purchase the energy produced from both new systems over 20-year terms. Renewable Ventures and Bell IPC plan to use those agreements to help secure financing for their projects.

The contracts, which will be submitted to the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) for approval, will be funded in part by an ACC-approved surcharge intended to support the state`s Renewable Energy Standard (RES). The RES calls on utilities to increase their use of renewable energy each year until such resources represent 15 percent of their power by 2025.

TEP is pursuing those goals through a combination of utility-owned installations, purchased power contracts and "distributed" resources like PV
systems and solar water heaters installed at local homes and businesses. Through its popular SunShare and GreenWatts programs, TEP is actively educating the community about renewable energy and offering options to customers who want to help the environment.

The output of the new systems will represent a significant addition to TEP`s growing renewable energy resources. With funding provided by customers, TEP has developed nearly 10 MW of company-owned renewable energy generating capacity and is on track to add another 3.4 MW in company-owned capacity and 31.5 MW through purchased power contracts in coming years.

TEP and its sister company, UniSource Energy Services, also are seeking to secure new solar energy capacity through a request for proposals (RFP) that was issued Friday, Sept. 11. The companies will consider either large, utility-scale projects or smaller distributed systems. A conference call for potential bidders is set for Sept. 30. For more information, visit www.uesaz.com/wholesale/.

Tucson Electric Power provides safe, reliable power to more than 400,000 customers in southern Arizona. For more information, visit tep.com. For more information about UniSource Energy, TEP`s parent company, visit uns.com.

Analysis

Concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) is still a relatively new branch of solar technology, but its recent progress has elevated its position in the market for providing clean renewable energy. In general, CPV uses lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large region of sunlight into a narrow beam, where the concentrated light is utilized as a heat source for a conventional power plant or is concentrated onto solar cells or photovoltaic surfaces. In the last several years, the number of companies developing CPV systems has increased to over 30. Simultaneously, advancements in companies developing high-efficiency multi-junction cells, which may be used in conjunction with CPV, are another boost to the field.
Commercial deployments have increased from a few kilowatts at demonstration facilities to approximately 5–8 megawatts (MW) in 2008, according to Photovoltaics World magazine. In comparison, between 30 and 50 MW of CPV installations are expected this year. Moreover, in areas where the solar exposure and intensity is high, CPV systems are ideal, including geographic regions of the world such as southern Europe, southwestern U.S., Africa, Australia, parts of Latin America and Asia. The CPV Consortium estimates that CPV is particularly well-suited to about one-third of the world’s land regions, which represent about 40% of the world’s population. In these regions, CPV technology is poised to provide the highest level of energy production and the lowest cost of electricity. In any case, a country's power grid system will likely require enhancement for an overhaul of new renewable energy or solar power resources.

CPV also helped contribute to achieving the world record for overall solar cell efficiency of 43% via a composite structure of five stacked cells developed by a research team at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

In southern California's Antelope Valley, 24,000 silver-bright mirrors were recently setup to reflect light on two 50-meter-tall towers. This concentrated light heated steam in the towers to turn a turbine as the first "power towers" in the U.S. to convert the sun's heat into electricity for commercial use in this fashion. The facility is known as the Sierra SunTower, which is now a power plant that can produce 5 MW, enough to serve approximately 4,000 local homes at full capacity. Thus, this facility is serving as a pilot test plant for larger plants in California and New Mexico, according to eSolar, the Pasadena, CA start-up behind the endeavor. A 46 MW commercial design will incorporate 16 of these towers, as well as more than 200,000 mirrors that are capable of generating at least 90 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year.

The key element of eSolar's design are the mirrors; however, they may be its biggest downfall due to the potential large-scale maintenance that may be involved. By precisely calibrating the mirrors with computer algorithms that guide tote-bag sized motors, eSolar can construct its sunlight-harvesting power plants with many more simply-manufactured small, flat mirrors, roughly one square meter in size, as opposed to the large, complex, parabolic-shaped specialty mirrors employed in more commonly-used competitive technology at companies such as Phoenix, AZ area-based Stirling Energy Systems (SES). Bill Gross, CEO of eSolar, estimates that the entire state of California's peak electricity demand could be generated from an eSolar farm of 65 square kilometers. Furthermore, he has stated that the electricity would be competitive with conventional power sources at a cost of 13 cents per kilowatt-hour or less.

Improvements in solar tracking systems will elevate the performance of many types of CPV technology by efficiently directing sunlight to the most critical areas on related devices. OPEL International Inc., a leading global developer and supplier of high concentration photovoltaic and other solar products, including ground-based and rooftop tracker systems, recently announced it will be manufacturing two of its utility-scale high performance solar trackers- in the U.S. The major benefit of the new trackers in the OPEL product line is the possibility of increasing the amount of kilowatt-hours that can be produced per unit of area. This is particularly attractive when dealing with limited real state availability such as roof top applications for green building design. In addition, companies such as SolFocus, who are leaders in providing CPV mirrors are also expanding their U.S. manufacturing base, namely in Mesa, AZ, offering  green jobs to help revitalize the economy.

In an upcoming follow-up article, a review of CPV market share will be presented in comparison to the overall solar energy agenda across the spectrum of leading U.S. power utility providers.

 Arizona-based First Solar, meanwhile, announced a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government to build a 2 gigawatt solar power plant in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. The solar project "will be built over a multi-year period," according to a company statement. "Phase 1 will be a 30 megawatt demonstration project that will begin construction by June 1, 2010. Phases 2, 3 and 4 will be 100 megawatts, 870 megawatts, and 1,000 megawatts. Phases 2 and 3 will be completed in 2014 and Phase 4 will be completed by 2019."

These developments aren't particularly surprising when one considers the 2.7+ gigawatts of U.S. PV projects in the pipeline over the next half-decade, combined with the knowledge that module assembly has historically followed markets. Barring a few exceptions, however, media attention on the U.S. PV landscape has focused almost exclusively on the demand side of the coin. It's somewhat understandable given that the stimulus funds made available through State Energy Program grants are all deployment-focused and that installation holds more employment creation potential than manufacturing, being more labor intensive. Still, it's frustrating that this issue continues to be ignored by most: 20,000 manufacturing jobs ain't no joke, especially at a time when unemployment is approaching 10 percent. On top of this, a build-out of PV production in the U.S. will also create all manner of opportunities for their vendors – for example, producers of polysilicon, glass, and encapsulants, and equipment, to name a few.  Perhaps most importantly, while deployments uneasily await the return of credit markets to resume, growth in manufacturing is happening here and now.

And not to beat a dead horse, but this development is all the more interesting in light of the recent competing trend of outsourcing PV production to "low-cost" locations. It certainly provides a tangible counterpoint to those in the industry who believe that, like consumer electronics, PV production will eventually be reside almost entirely in Asia. My guess: While this is likely to be true for crystalline silicon cells and wafers (MEMC, anyone?), the U.S. will be home to a sizeable chunk of thin-film and c-Si module assembly plants over coming years. Then again, with China making all the right noises about gigawatt-scale PV deployment, I could end up having to eat my words. Which, I suppose, is all the more reason to flaunt it when you got it.

1366 Technologies (www.1366tech.com), a silicon photovoltaics company, today unveiled two breakthrough technologies for multi-crystalline silicon solar cells. The company's significant advancements in cell texturing and metallization deliver simpler, more commercially-viable solutions for multi-crystalline cell manufacturers striving to reach 18 percent efficiency. 1366 Technologies' Self-Aligned Cell (SAC) architecture breaks the historic efficiency and cost tradeoff of photovoltaics (PV) by providing mono-crystalline equivalent cell efficiencies at multi-crystalline cell costs.

For years, many PV companies have tried to increase efficiencies by using overly-complicated approaches, such as back-contact or emitter wrap through solar cell technology, which add costly steps to the manufacturing process with minimal gains in cell efficiency. This problem slowed the pace of progress until MIT professor, renowned inventor and 1366 Technologies Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Emanuel "Ely" Sachs, developed a simple, cost-effective approach to improving cell texturing and metallization without increasing production costs. 

"At 1366 we've pioneered a cell architecture and manufacturing process that's going to change the way we think about energy," said Frank van Mierlo, co-founder and president of 1366 Technologies. "Our innovations have the potential to save manufacturers $50 billion over the next five years and help the industry deliver solar at the cost of coal."

1366 Technologies has developed two technologies that can be easily integrated into existing manufacturing lines. The first addresses cell texture, creating a distinctive honeycomb structure that introduces cross-textured surfaces to the cell that trap more light and enable up to 1 percent higher absolute efficiency overall than previous cell designs.  The second focuses on the front-side cell metallization, wherein the company has developed the world's finest metallization lines -- just 30 microns compared to the prevailing 120 microns -- and an innovative Grooved Ribbon busbar (licensed by Ulbrich and Schlenk). Industry standard thick fingers and flat busbars typically shade 9 percent of the surface of a cell. 1366's simple front-side metallization approach, however, only shades 2 percent of the cell delivering 75 percent of the efficiency gains of back-contact cell designs without the high costs and process complexity.

"The way we see it, the right technology and materials are available now to help PV reach grid parity, but the challenge for our industry is to
simultaneously deliver high efficiencies and low costs," said Dr. Emanuel Sachs, co-founder and chief technology officer for 1366 Technologies.  "Our Self-Aligned Cell architecture addresses this challenge head-on.  We believe our technologies, combined with further advancements in manufacturing, will help solar power satisfy 7 percent of global electricity demand over the next decade and inspire one of the largest manufacturing revolutions in history." 

For more information about 1366 Technologies, please visit: www.1366tech.com. See images of the Self-Aligned Cell by going to:   http://pitch.pe/25380

About 1366 Technologies
1366 Technologies' eliminates the cost and production challenges that have hampered solar power's ability to replace fossil fuels.  The company combines breakthrough innovations in silicon cell architecture with lean manufacturing processes to make the world's most cost effective and commercially viable high efficiency solar cells. Developed by a veteran team of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, including MIT professor and photovoltaic industry expert Dr. Emanuel Sachs, the company's novel approach breaks the historic efficiency and cost tradeoff of photovoltaics.  1366 Technologies is headquartered in Lexington, MA. For more information, please visit www.1366tech.com.

The optics developed under the program have been incorporated into the SolFocus’ second product, the 1100S CPV system, which was launched last November and recently transitioned into full-scale commercialization (with 11MW of product being shipped this year and an estimated 100MW of manufacturing capacity in place by the end of 2011). “They developed a highly innovative 650x concentrating PV module emphasizing high reliability and high efficiency,” says NREL senior scientist Martha Symko-Davies.

As the first showcase for the technology developed through the PV incubator program, eleven SF-1100S CPV arrays will be installed at the 92kW Central Arizona Project Water Treatment Plant of the City of Mesa, Arizona (a pilot and initial endeavor for a long-term, private/public strategic collaboration that aims to demonstrate the technical and commercial viability and value of a larger-scale approach to distributed generation). The arrays will interconnect with the Salt River Project's electric distribution system meter, providing power to Red Mountain Park (across the street from the treatment facility).

“The city of Mesa is committed to developing renewable energy sources as part of its environmental sustainability program,” says the city’s director of economic development, Bill Jabjiniak. “SolFocus has become an important partner to the City of Mesa in its economic development efforts as well as in its sustainable energy initiatives.” In April, SolFocus completed a 15-fold capacity expansion of its Mesa glass reflector manufacturing factory (to 2 million concentrating reflectors annually, sufficient for 30MW of solar power generation), with full production expected in second-half 2009 and an annual payroll of more than $7.5m.

The funds awarded for city of Mesa showcase build on a series of commercial milestones for SolFocus: the close of Series C Funding earlier this summer; an agreement in July with GreenWing Energy Management Ltd of Vancouver, Canada to supply CPV systems for its large-scale solar power projects in the western USA; the largest CPV installation in Europe currently underway in Greece; and the first certification of a CPV system to IEC 62108 standards in May.

This agreement fits in the strategy of Kaneka to examine the expansion of its solar cell manufacturing capacity to 1 Giga Watt by 2015. The decision to establish a European lab was motivated by the need to have a presence, and in future also a production facility, close to the rapidly growing European PV market. “IMEC was chosen as the preferred R&D partner because of its longstanding expertise and excellent track-record in photovoltaics, and because of its unique knowledge and capabilities in materials processing and photonics;” says Kaneka Corporation’s President Kimikazu Sugawara. 

Luc Van den hove, President and CEO of IMEC, states: “We are extremely happy that Kaneka chooses IMEC as its key partner for its new solar cell research. It emphasizes the prominent role of IMEC in the photovoltaics domain.” 
Kaneka’s European Photovoltaics Laboratory will be the first R&D lab of a Japanese solar cell manufacturer outside of Japan. Under the agreement, a team of engineers of Kaneka and IMEC will install and operate Kaneka equipment in IMEC’s photovoltaics labs. Dr. Kenji Yamamoto, who will be managing the laboratory, says: “By closely collaborating with IMEC’s research team we will enhance Kaneka’s current thin-film solar cells and develop a new industrial hetero-junction solar cell technology.” 
To enhance Kaneka’s amorphous silicon microcrystalline silicon (a-Si/uc-Si) solar cells, IMEC’s silicon wafer process and device technology and its expertise in optics, micromachining and photonics will be combined. The cooperation will result in a new industrial a-Si:H hetero-junction based high-efficiency solar cell technology, with an envisaged efficiency of beyond 20% for large cells in an industrial proces. 

“This collaboration with Kaneka is an important research activity complementary to the silicon photovoltaics industrial affiliation research program running at IMEC;” added Dr. Jef Poortmans, IMEC’s Photovoltaics Program Director. 

About IMEC 

IMEC is a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. IMEC is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, US, China and Japan. Its staff of more than 1,650 people include over 550 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2008, IMEC's revenue (P&L) was 270 million euro. 
IMEC's More Moore research targets semiconductor scaling for the 22nm technology node and beyond. With its More than Moore research, IMEC invents technology for nomadic embedded systems, wireless autonomous transducer solutions, biomedical electronics, photovoltaics, organic electronics and GaN power electronics. 
IMEC's research bridges the gap between the fundamental research at universities and R&D in the industry. It has unique processing and system know-how, intellectual property portfolio, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and a strong and worldwide network position. This makes IMEC a key partner for shaping the technology of the future. 

About Kaneka 

Kaneka Corporation was established as Kanegafuchi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. in 1949. It is headquartered in Osaka, Japan and employs about 7,300 people worldwide (including consolidated subsidiaries). Kaneka’s activities span a broad spectrum of markets ranging from photovoltaics, plastics, EPS resins, chemicals and foodstuffs to pharmaceuticals, medical devices, electrical and electronic materials and synthetic fibers. Kaneka has subsidiaries in Belgium, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia and Vietnam. 

“This collaboration with Kaneka is an important research activity complementary to the silicon photovoltaics industrial affiliation research program running at IMEC;” added Dr. Jef Poortmans, IMEC’s Photovoltaics Program Director.

About IMEC

IMEC is a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. IMEC is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, US, China and Japan. Its staff of more than 1,650 people include over 550 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2008, IMEC's revenue (P&L) was 270 million euro.

IMEC's More Moore research targets semiconductor scaling for the 22nm technology node and beyond. With its More than Moore research, IMEC invents technology for nomadic embedded systems, wireless autonomous transducer solutions, biomedical electronics, photovoltaics, organic electronics and GaN power electronics.

IMEC's research bridges the gap between the fundamental research at universities and R&D in the industry. It has unique processing and system know-how, intellectual property portfolio, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and a strong and worldwide network position. This makes IMEC a key partner for shaping the technology of the future.

About Kaneka

Kaneka Corporation was established as Kanegafuchi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. in 1949. It is headquartered in Osaka, Japan and employs about 7,300 people worldwide (including consolidated subsidiaries). Kaneka’s activities span a broad spectrum of markets ranging from photovoltaics, plastics, EPS resins, chemicals and foodstuffs to pharmaceuticals, medical devices, electrical and electronic materials and synthetic fibers. Kaneka has subsidiaries in Belgium, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia and Vietnam.

Two big announcements marked its coming out party: The company has $4 billion in contracts and can make money selling its products for $1 per watt of a panel’s capacity. That’s cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels in markets across the world.

Specifically, the company’s management thinks it can help utilities avoid the difficulties of getting big coal and nuclear power plants built by offering the option to build small solar farms they can set up close to cities.

“Cost-efficient solar panels such as ours can be deployed in 2- to 20-megawatt municipal solar power plants that feed peak power directly into the local distribution without requiring the expense of transmission and with a plant deployment time as short as six months,” said Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Coal or nuclear can’t do that, can’t do it as cost efficient and can’t do it as rapidly deployable.”

Thin-film solar has been a major focus of U.S. alternative energy research and development efforts since the early 1980s because it was seen as a true “breakthrough” solar technology. Silicon cells are easy to manufacture, dependable and efficient, but some researchers viewed them as inherently limited. As they are currently produced, they require a lot more silicon than thin-film solar cells. They might reach efficiency levels of over 40 percent, but they’d never compete with fossil fuel energy sources, even with carbon taxes.

Thin-film solar was different. On the one hand, it was definitely harder to make efficient cells. However, it allowed researchers to dream of printing semiconducting chemicals onto a metal sheet and having it convert photons into electricity. Thin-film cells seemed like they’d be perfect for the applications researchers imagined like “solar shingles” for building-integrated solar installations.

Thin film was promoted as the technology that would bring photovoltaics to the masses at prices competitive with fossil fuels.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory worked steadily on thin films throughout the 1990s, but no technology seemed to work well outside the lab. It turned out to be really difficult to actually manufacture thin-film solar cells.

Then First Solar exploded onto the solar scene in 2005 with a cadmium-telluride thin-film cell. Their manufacturing costs dropped rapidly and soon they had billions of dollars in contracts, largely with utilities. Yesterday, they signed a two-gigawatt deal with Chinese officials. Now, investors value the company higher than American, Delta, and United Airlines combined. First Solar has become the bar and the target for Nanosolar, and the dozens of other thin-film market hopefuls.

What could set Nanosolar apart is the way the company actually gets its semiconductors to stick to the metal foil. Most companies use various techniques executed under vacuum conditions; Nanosolar prints its solar cells.

“What separates them from the rest of the companies is that they have developed a process to make CIGS cells which involves non-vacuum technology,” said Miguel Contreras, a thin-film solar researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “This is a very generic description, but what I’m pointing out is that by having a wet chemistry process, they are able to save quite a bit of money in terms of capital equipment.”

The base for their cells — the aluminum foil — is plentiful and cheap, which the company says has cost and manufacturing advantages.

Earlier this year, First Solar claimed it started manufacturing solar cells for less than $1 per watt. Nanosolar says it can go cheaper. They also took aim at First Solar in a recent whitepaper (.pdf) for utilities, claiming their “balance-of-system costs” (all the other stuff beyond the solar cells themselves) will be lower.

It’s big talk for a company that hasn’t really entered commercial production, but Nanosolar has a half a billion dollars in venture funding and some bleeding-edge technology. Beyond the contracts they’ve won, they announced that NREL testing found their cells to be the most efficient printed solar cell on record at 16.4 percent.

Even though the competition among solar companies is heating up, there is plenty of room for multiple players in the expanding renewable energy markets. Competition can drive innovation and cost reductions, too, which would be good news for solar energy advocates. After major cost drops in the early ’90s, the average solar module’s cost hasn’t been declining very quickly.

If companies like First Solar and Nanosolar continue to grow, they will drive that average price closer to competing with fossil fuels. First Solar will be producing about a gigawatt of panels this year. Nanosolar’s production is tiny, by comparison. They have a 640-megawatt facility, and are ramping up production from their current megawatt per month of production. Scaling up can be difficult with PV technologies, but Roscheisen was confident.

“There are manufacturability issues with CIGS but you wouldn’t hit a million cells a month unless you have worked out these,” he said. “This is why our manufacturing people have considered going from 0 output to 1 megawatt a month in output as more challenging than scaling from 1 megawatt to 100 megawatts or more.”

The memorandum of understanding between Chinese officials and First Solar, the world’s largest photovoltaic cell manufacturer, would open a potentially vast solar market in China and follows the Chinese government’s recent moves to accelerate development of renewable energy.

When completed, the Ordos solar farm would generate enough electricity to power about three million Chinese homes, according to First Solar.

First Solar, based in Tempe, Ariz., is also likely to build a factory in China to make thin-film solar panels, said Mike Ahearn, the company’s chief executive. “It is significant that a non-Chinese company can land something like this in China,” Mr. Ahearn said in an interview.

Most proposed large-scale solar projects use solar thermal technology, which deploys mirrors to heat a liquid to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine. But as photovoltaic technology becomes more cost-competitive, utilities are turning to companies like First Solar for big solar power farms. Such projects generally have fewer environmental impacts and can be brought online faster than solar thermal plants.

“This is nuclear power-size scale,” Mr. Ahearn said of the China project. “A two-gigawatt solar project, if this is connected and is economical at the grid level, demonstrates that solar on a large scale really does work.”

Financial terms of the agreement have yet to be reached and will depend on China completing a feed-in tariff that pays a premium for electricity generated by renewable energy projects. First Solar said the 2,000-megawatt power plant would cost $5 billion to $6 billion if built in the United States today, but it said the cost to build such a project in China would probably be lower.

The Ordos agreement is the latest large-scale solar farm deal that First Solar has signed in recent months as it expands its business from manufacturing solar modules to building power plants. The company also has agreed to supply two California utilities with 1,100 megawatts of electricity from three big solar farms.

“Discussions with First Solar about building a factory in China demonstrate to investors in China that they can confidently invest in the most advanced technologies available,” Cao Zhichen, vice mayor of Ordos Municipal Government, said in a statement.

Until the announcement of the Ordos project, the largest single photovoltaic power plant was the 550-megawatt Topaz solar farm to be built by First Solar in California. As solar panel prices continue to fall and projects like Ordos bring further economies of scale, photovoltaic farms are expected to become more competitive with solar thermal power plants.

China is home to a blossoming solar industry thanks to generous government support. But Chinese companies like Suntech, the world’s third-largest solar module maker, export most of their products.

First Solar’s cadmium telluride solar cells are less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than standard crystalline silicon cells made by companies like Suntech but they can be manufactured at a significantly lower cost.

“Given that China has built up homegrown companies like Suntech, it’s quite significant that they’re importing a U.S. world leader to the marketplace,” said Nathaniel Bullard, a solar analyst at New Energy Finance, a London market research firm. “This is going to help ensure technological leadership and not just manufacturing leadership.”

Suntech formed a venture last year to build solar power plants in the United States and has announced plans to open a factory in the Southwest.

A high-ranking Chinese official, Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, attended the signing of the First Solar agreement in Arizona on Tuesday. The memorandum of understanding is just the first step in what is likely to be a long and complicated process to build such a gargantuan solar power plant in a country with little experience in constructing such projects.

“The ability to predict solar energy yields off these systems to make accurate financial predictions isn’t in place yet in China,” Mr. Ahearn said.

Plans for the Ordos renewable energy park call for wind farms to generate 6,950 megawatts, photovoltaic power plants to provide 3,900 megawatts and solar thermal farms to supply 720 megawatts. Biomass operations, fueled by organic materials like wood chips and straw, will contribute 310 megawatts; 70 megawatts will be available from hydro storage, a load-balancing technology that uses off-peak power to pump water to a high reservoir from which it can be released to turn turbines at peak demand periods.

First Solar will have to establish a supply chain to provide power inverters and other hardware needed for its part of the project as well as train Chinese contractors how to build and operate solar farms. Another hurdle is that China must upgrade its transmission system to connect the solar power plant to the grid.

Mr. Ahearn said it was probable that a Chinese utility would ultimately own and run the 16,000-acre solar power plant.

The agreement calls for ground to be broken on the first 30-megawatt phase of the project by June 1, 2010, followed by 100-megawatt and 870-megawatt additions to be completed by the end of 2014. A final 1,000-megawatt phase is scheduled to go online by Dec. 31, 2019.

Major markets in Europe and the United States are slowly recovering, Terry Wang, the chief financial officer of U.S.-listed Trina Solar, said at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in Beijing.

"The worst is already over, and the whole sector in the United States and China can wake up in the fourth quarter, but a full recovery is likely to have to wait until the second quarter of next year," Wang said.

Trina has successfully navigated a 50-percent collapse in solar panel prices this year, helped by significantly lower polysilicon raw material costs, and was well placed to exploit strong underlying demand in the global market, he added.

"Affected by the financial crisis this year, our shipment volume has still increased, and our profitability has been maintained and increased compared to last year despite such a rapid drop in prices -- that's not easy," he said.

Trina Solar, founded in 1997 and based in the city of Changzhou in the Yangtze river delta, earned $0.71 per share in the second quarter, up 4 percent from a year earlier and well ahead of analysts' expectations.

Wang said the company was on course to meet its shipment targets for this year and planned to raise production capacity to between 850 and 950 megawatts by the end of next year, from 400 MW now.

With foreign export markets in the doldrums, China's policy makers have wrestled with the problem of stimulating demand at home, and a new subsidy regime allowing solar power projects to compete with thermal plants is now being put in place.

But with the domestic market still in its youthful early stages, China's photovoltaic panel sector is more vulnerable than most to changes in external demand. Around 95 percent of Trina Solar's customers are based overseas, Wang said.

Europe remains the major battleground for Chinese solar manufacturers, and although installations in China and elsewhere are expected to surge in the coming years, around 80 percent of demand will still be in Europe next year, he said.

China's solar sector is therefore vulnerable to policy adjustments abroad, and suffered last year when the Spanish government decided to curb subsidies for photovoltaic projects.

It is also vulnerable to economic downturns, and last year's financial crisis quickly forced developers to delay project construction plans, reducing demand and driving solar component prices through the floor.

The problems were only temporary, Wang said.

Global solar module demand is still expected to grow by as much as 76 percent next year, reaching 10.5 gigawatts, according to a research report by UBS.

Trina Solar itself forecasts output growth of 80-90 percent next year from 350-400 megawatts this year.

Despite intensifying competition, Trina aims to raise its share of global panel shipments, worth around $16 billion in 2008, to 8 percent, from 5 percent now, Wang said.

"We want to expand faster than the overall market and boost our market share. We only need demand and we will adjust our expansion plans. We will not expand blindly."

The message is a powerful one, and companies such as Solar Energy Initiatives are aiming to capitalize on it. Based in Ponte Vedra, Florida, the solar energy systems dealer and integrator’s overarching strategy is defined in its “Renew the Nation” campaign and mission statement– “to help redeploy a portion of the US workforce and focus on reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels by selling solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) technologies.”

Solar Powered Government

Outfitting government buildings with renewable energy systems may be one of the quickest and most effective ways the federal government can stimulate adoption of renewable energy systems.

On Sept. 3, Solar Energy Initiatives announced that it had signed letters of intent worth $17 million with US municipalities to install and operate some 4-megawatts of PV systems on government buildings.

As per the terms of of a power purchase agreement, SEI will supply around 20,000 solar panels, install the systems on-site at municipal buildings, and sell the electricity generated to the municipalities at lower rates than they have been paying to their incumbent power suppliers. Expected to be completed in 2Q 2010, the municipalities will not have to lay out any out-of-pocket cash expenses. It’s estimated that once up and running, some 6,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions will be avoided.

The news follows on the late July announcement that SEI had been awarded a portion of the $467 million in stimulus/recovery funding allocated from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 “to train displaced workers as solar energy installation and maintenance technicians.”

“Solar Energy Initiatives obtained the funding due to its rapidly growing dealer network and reputation as a leading educator of solar installation,” co-founder and CEO David Fann said in a news release. “We will work with all applicable government agencies in order to secure addition potential grants to assist in the growth of our business. Management remains dedicated to increasing the Company’s dealer network and expanding market presence in order to achieve our ultimate goal of improved shareholder value.”

Renewing the Nation

As a wholesale manufacturer, distributor and budding integrator of solar power systems, Solar Energy Initiatives has a number of things going for it. One is its distribution agreements with the solar divisions of two energy industry powerhouses– BP and GE, as well as leading solar/PV suppliers in Asia.

On the other side of the value chain, the company has assembled a network of 50 dealers in the US through which it can distribute its projects.

Third, renewable energy federal stimulus programs, such as the eight-year extension of the federal investment tax credit and other stimulus and incentives enacted with the passage of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, are providing incentives and support for a promising US solar-PV market that, having grown rapidly in the past five-plus years, has fallen on exceedingly tough times.

Finally, the current recession hit just as large amounts of supply–in new high-grade silicon and solar-PV cells supply hit the market. While this has suppressed demand, it has also brought prices of solar thermal and PV products down faster, and lower, than would otherwise have been the case.

An alternative is to invest in sensor and control networks to reduce energy consumption in major plants and infrastructure, an option which ran PV research a close second. The solar route grabbed 24 percent of respondents' votes while enhanced control garnered 21 percent.

A number of other activities scored well. In descending order: developing energy harvesting technologies scored 13 percent; improving the efficiency of batteries received 12 percent; improving the efficiency of power supplies got 11 percent; improving the efficiency of lighting was thought a bright idea by 10 percent; and taking steps to lower the power consumption of ICs brought up the rear with 9 percent of vote.

Amdex Group (the proprietor of KGOK) advised that the integrated plant is going to establish a vertically integrated production cycle for photoelectric solar energy converters.

KGOK will have to carry out a technical equipment upgrade of the quartz concentrate production prior to actually organising the production of solar cells. This is necessary to be able to get the guaranteed three thousand tons of solar polysilicon annually, which is used to make almost 90% of all solar cells in the world.

At the moment KGOK is testing the first batches of the solar grade polysilicon. Amdex Group reckons that the carbothermic reduction technology used by the plant makes the polysilicon production 1.5 times cheaper than the traditional chlorosilane method.

Aleksandr Korchevskiy, the senior analyst from I2BF Capital Advisors Ltd., told RusBusinessNews that if the traditional technology were to be used in the project of this size, the investment needed would be around 300-400 million US dollars; the carbothermic reduction technology, however, enables a cost reduction of two to four times.

Vadim Kuzmin, the Director General of JSC KGOK, says that the amount of investments in the Sunny Silicon projects is estimated at 180 million dollars. The experimental stage is planned to be completed in 2009; by 2013 the production should reach the projected capacity. It is planned that the project will be financed by a number of Russian and foreign investors, the negotiations are nearing completion currently.

"The carbothermic reduction technology does have one disadvantage - the produced silicon is not sufficiently pure. A number of companies abroad are currently working on this problem but no solution has been found so far. It is most likely that KGOK will have to buy purer silicon and mix it with their product", presumes Aleksandr Korchevskiy.

According to his data, the world market of polysilicon has been growing 30-40% annually since 2004 due to the rapid development of the solar power engineering, and up until very recently the demand had by far exceeded the supply. In the first half of 2009, however, large production capacities have been commissioned, particularly in China, resulting in the price drop on the spot market from 400 to 80 dollars for one kilo of polysilicon. The long term contract prices have dropped too, although not as much.

"Nevertheless, after this burst the excessive supply led to an adjustment. In recent months the prise has ceased falling and has even shown a small growth", Aleksandr Korchevskiy points out.

There are several projects in Russia similar to the Sunny Silicon at various stages of development. So, the Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine (a part of the state owned corporation Rosatom) has started the polysilicon production with the 200 tons annual capacity in September 2008, so far not reaching the 4,000 tons declared earlier.

The Nitol Group (a part of the multinational Nitol Solar) is operating the first 300 tons per year train of the production in the Irkutsk Oblast and planning to start up the main production with the 3,500 tons annual capacity by the end of 2009. The Chinese SunTech Power is amongst the shareholders of the group, being one of the world leaders in the solar power generation; most of the group's production output is sold to China. The state owned corporation Rosnano is supporting Nitol's project having approved the 7.5 billion roubles investment, three billion out of which has been transferred in April.

Zi Poli Tomsk Ltd., a resident of the Tomsk special economic area (OEZ), is planning to commission an experimental polysilicon plant in the autumn. The project cost is estimated at 200 million dollars; the Taiwanese group of companies Lite-On is the key investor.

"A number of foreign investors have abandoned similar projects recently so as to prevent the total slump of polysilicon prices", Aleksandr Korchevskiy point out. USA, Europe, Japan, China still are going to increase the production volumes in the future. This is due, amongst other things, to the fact that polysilicon suppliers recently have invested vast amounts of money into new production capacities and will have to increase production to cover their fixed costs.

As there is no demand for polysilicon in Russia, the domestic manufacturers are going to face a serious competition in the global market. The product cost plays a key role in this. Zi Poli Tomsk Ltd., for instance, owns the Russian patent for the new fluoride production technology of polysilicon. Employing this technology drives the cost of the product down to about ten dollars per kilo which is three times lower than that made employing the old chlorosilane method.

KGOK's prospects do not seem bad either. Specialists estimate that the carbothermic reduction technology will halve the cost to 15 dollars per kilogram which would leave the manufacturer plenty of room for manoeuvre.

The Chelyabinsk Oblast is planning the construction of a solar cell plant, as well as the polysilicon production plant. The Tomsk OEZ might go the same way; should Zi Poli Tomsk Ltd. succeed, it is planned to establish there a cluster for the implementation of fluoride technologies. One way or another, Russian solar cells will have to compete for customers in the foreign markets since there is no demand in the RF for them.

Serghey Pikin, the Director of the Energy Development Fund is of the opinion that there are no objective prerequisites for the establishment of photoelectric products market in Russia as yet. Solar power is several times more expensive than traditional and the adopted law on renewable energy sources provides no subsidies for solar energy producers.

"It is possible that several solar energy facilities may be built for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, but these would be built for demonstration purposes only", the expert reckons.

Nevertheless, he thinks the situation might change if the solar lobby led by Viktor Vekselberg, the proprietor of the Renova Group of Companies, somehow manages to achieve changes which would make the domestic solar energy production profitable.

It is worth mentioning, that in June 2009 Renova and Rosnano have reached an agreement on the establishment of the joint venture for the production of solar modules based on the Swiss thin film technology from Oerlikon Solar. It has been decided that the site for the new plant will be on the territory of JSC Khimprom in the Chuvash Republic. Moreover, a large research centre will be established on the basis of the joint venture. The project start up is planned for third quarter of 2009; it should reach the annual projected capacity of one million modules by the end of 2011. It is expected that more than 20 billion roubles will be invested into the project. By 2015 the turnover of the venture is expected to reach 10.3 billion roubles.

The report European Solar Photovoltaic Market (2009) analyzes this industry, starting from the basics to what is driving this industry. The report starts off with a brief overview of the European energy market which contains data on European energy statistics, outlook for the industry, the growing focus on renewable energy, and of course, the potential of solar energy in the region. The report then moves on the discussing the basic technology behind solar photovoltaics. The section looks at PV cells and modules, inverters, the various components of a PV system, and the various types of PV systems available today.

Moving on to the European photovoltaic industry, the report analyzes the entire PV market in terms of application area, global as well as European PV production statistics, and the future potential of solar photovoltaics. Strategies and recommendations for researchers, analysts, and in general, is a highlight of this section of the report. A brief cost analysis of solar photovoltaics in Europe is also done based on types of PV applications. Estimates for current and future PV generation costs are also provided.

The report then analyses each of the major European PV markets one by one. Countries covered in this segment are - Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and New EU Member States including Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, Poland and Romania among others. For each of these countries we have covered the PV production and installation statistics, policy structure, recent R&D initiatives and future potential of the market.

Further, leading PV companies in Europe are discussed, which include Aleo Solar, Q-Cells, Scheuten Solar, Siemens, Solarworld and Isofoton among others. Primary solar photovoltaic projects, and PV plants, such as the Solar Park in Beneixama, the Solar Power Plant in Saarbrucken Airport, etc., are also profiled, along with statistical data, in this research report.

Key Topics Covered:

I. Executive Summary

II. European Energy Market

III. Solar Pv - Basic Technology

IV. European Photovoltaic Market

V. Key European Pv Markets

VI. Major Solar Pv Companies

VII. Solar Pv Projects / Plants

VIII. Future Of European Pv Markets

IX. Appendix And Glossary

Companies Mentioned:

- Aleo Solar

- Aplicaciones Tecnicas de las Energia (ATERSA)

- Centrosolar Group AG

- Ersol

- Isofoton S.A.

- Photowatt International SA

- Photowatt Technologies

- Q-Cells AG

- REC ASA

- Romag Ltd.

- Scheuten Solar

- Scheuten Solar Systems BV

- SCHOTT Solar AG

- Siemens Solar

- Solar-Fabrik AG

- Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente, S.A.

- Solarwatt AG

- Solarworld AG

- Solon SE

- TENESOL

- Wacker Schott Solar GmbH

- XGROUP S.p.A.

After several years of spectacular growth in Spain’s photovoltaic solar industry, which made it world leader in 2008, China has taken over top slot after increasing its installed capacity by 100% during the first half of 2009.

Over 2,600 MW of solar power was installed in Spain during 2008, enabling the Mediterranean country to occupy first place in the world solar rankings ahead of Germany and the US. This spectacular year-on-year growth of 385% was fuelled by a generous feed-in tariff for PV solar energy and meant that Spain accounted for 45% of the global PV solar market (which met 1% of total energy demand last year).

Unfortunately, the Spanish government decided that the feed-in tariff established by Royal Decree 661 regulating the production of electricity using renewable energy sources was too generous and was leading to unsustainable levels of growth. As a result, it issued a Royal Decree specific to the PV solar industry (Royal Decree 1578/2008) establishing 20-30% tariff reductions in an attempt to slow the growth of the market. This move has had the desired outcome of slowing growth, although there are clear signs that Spain’s PV solar industry has taken a severe blow that has caused possibly irreparable damage. Just when the Spanish economy needs the kind of leadership the PV solar industry showed last year to bring it out of a severe recession in which unemployment is spiralling upwards, the Royal Decree has caused 25,000 jobs to be lost. According to the Spanish PV Industry Association (Asif), this accounts for 27% of permanent jobs and 90% of temporary jobs in the PV solar sector. Indeed these cuts have been so severe that it has been impossible to install the maximum 500 MW permitted under Royal Decree 1578/2008. Asif also reports that the sector is also stagnating due to the current recession and difficulties in obtaining financing for new PV solar projects.

In China, however, the PV solar industry is flourishing thanks to several measures taken to boost the sector, which is expected to growth from 10 GW to 20 GW by 2020. The Chinese government announced in July that it will offer grants to finance half the cost of constructing solar plants, along with other measures to help small companies to obtain credits from state-owned banks. Several Chinese companies such as Suntech Power Holdings Co. and Yingli Green Energy Co. are increasing solar energy production around the world, while Suntech, for example, is now ranked as one of the leading solar panel producers worldwide.

The US has also taken decisive steps to nurture its solar industry. The US government has established measures such as financial support for installing plants and grants for solar companies which it hopes will enable the sector to recover from the recession and return to one of the top positions in the global solar rankings.

Meanwhile, the PV solar market has also taken a hit in Europe, with countries such as Germany and Norway announcing losses after several years of significant growth.

Nevertheless, Asif is confident that last year’s boom has lead to Spain reaching critical mass and that it can recover its position as leader of the industry, which is among those with the greatest prospects of growth worldwide, in the near future.

“Solar farms such as Lieberose are very important for the future of all of the renewable energies. By their size and the efficiency with which the solar panels are produced, they contribute to significantly lower prices and to accelerating the advent of competitive solar electricity. This clearly increases the acceptance of solar energy,” said First Solar managing director Stephan Hansen

Lieberose, the solar farm, is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. The site location is a former military training centre used perviously by the Soviet Union in Germany. The site is one of the largest former military training facilities in Germany. The companies were able to lease the land for low cost fro the Brandenburg authorities in exchange for restoring the military site by removing any leftover grenade, shrapnel, and munitions waste left behind from training days. 

Once the lease is finished, the solar farm will be relocated and the site will have been restored back to its original form prior to the Soviet Union’s training centre being established.

US-based Plextronics has completed a $14 million funding round that will help it move further down the road to commercialising its printed electronics-based lighting and solar generation products.

It is thought that printed electronic technology, which is based on conductive polymers, could eventually become a low-cost replacement for silicon in the photovoltaic (PV) market, if conversion efficiency rates can be improved.

The company said the money raised will be used to boost research and development activity and expand existing pilot manufacturing projects in response to growing customer demand.

Andy Hannah, the company's president and chief executive, said: "The funding from this round will enable us to continue to advance our lighting and solar products - namely our Organic Light Emitting Diode and Organic PV materials and inks - so that we can scale these products to meet the customer and industry demand we are seeing."

The company, which was spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2002, said that its aim was to employ the technology as a means of generating solar power and also to deploy it in energy-efficient devices.

Solvay North American Investments, which first invested in the firm in 2007 and contributed $12 million in funding during this round, becomes the company's single largest minority shareholder. Several of Plextronics' existing private investors also contributed to the B-1 financing arrangement.

The company's last fund-raising activity took place in 2007, when it obtained $25 million in a similar B-Series financing deal.

Just for one example of how serious a contender PV is becoming, consider Spain. Right now that beautiful country is copping a lot of blame because of changes in the incentive structure that have led to a major drop in solar sales there, large and small. Indeed, little old Spain is being held responsible for most of the oversupply currently being experienced by the PV manufacturing industry, which I think could be seen differently…

Another perspective on Spain is that it has championed solar and is way ahead of most of the world. As of May 09, 4% of electricity produced in the country came from el sol. Four percent! Little over 5 years ago there was almost no solar in the country so they have gone from zero to solar hero in almost no time at all. We’d love for them to continue to grow at this rate and it is a shame the government has pulled back on some market support schemes.

But if we take that example, of a small country going to 4% we can see the trajectory that will get us to 40% in a couple of decades, which is where we need to be to stop climate change. By then all these bumps along the road will look like shadows cast by clouds. But before I get too poetic about rain falling mainly on a plain in Spain, check out this video from our friends at Solon whose motto is “Don’t leave the planet to the Stupid”.

The research firm predicts that China will lead in cell capacity in the future. Through 2006, Japan had the largest solar cell production capacity in the world. However, Chinese companies started to ramp up a host of new facilities in 2005 and by 2007 had more solar cell capacity on line than any other country. China has continued to invest heavily in production facilities, which accounts for about a third of the worldwide cell capacity in 2009.

Of the 3.58GW of thin film capacity available in 2009, more than 30% use 600 x 1200mm glass substrates, the standard cadmium telluride (CdTe) glass size used by First Solar. Gen 5-equivalent substrates, ranging from 1000 x 1200 to 1100 x1400mm, are the second most common glass size, used for 18% of available thin film capacity.

Between January 2008 and July 2009, approximately 11.4GW of new solar cell capacity was installed in fabs around the world. These previous investment commitments are the reason that capacity is continuing to grow 56% in 2009 despite falling demand.

In 2005, 95% of solar cell manufacturing capacity was for crystalline silicon solar cells and 5% for thin film solar cells. In 2009, thin film will account for more than 20% of capacity. By 2013, thin film technologies are forecast to account for as much as 30% of solar cell capacity.

For amorphous silicon (a-Si) factories, in 2009 the four largest turnkey equipment vendors are AMAT, Oerlikon ULVAC and EPV, representing 946MW of ramped capacity or more than 50% of a-Si capacity on-line this year.

In terms of capacity available for production in 2009, First Solar is the largest solar cell manufacturer with more than 1GW of capacity. Q-Cells and Suntech are not far behind and essentially tied for second place. These and other current leading PV cell manufacturers are forecast to invest at the highest rates over the next four years. By 2013, these three companies plus JA Solar, Motech, REC, SunPower, Yingli, Showa Shell Solar (assuming it moves forward with a planned 1GW CIGS fab), and Sharp are forecast to be the top 10 makers, with more than 16GW or 38% of 2013 capacity.

The spotlight is on PETEC - the Printable Electronics Technology Centre at Sedgefield - which last month was given £20m from government to continue breakthrough work in technologies including photovoltaics (PVs).

And PV could also play a key role in groundbreaking organic LED work by Spennymoor-based Thorn Lighting.

Thorn’s TOPLESS programme is helping to lead a revolutionary move away from traditional incandescent light bulbs to organic LEDs - super-thin sheets of plastic that emit white light. Several times more efficient than current low-energy bulbs, they could cut the UK’s electricity consumption by 8% by 2025 and when combined with domestic PVs, the carbon saving impact could be dramatic.

“The possibility of tying in with PVs is very interesting, it gives us the potential to take lighting off the grid,” said Dr Geoff Williams, from Thorn Lighting.

“We could effectively reduce the number of power stations required for microgeneration.”

Simon Ogier from PETEC, which is owned by Wilton-based Centre for Process Innovation, explains: “If we can make organic PV work, we will automatically have the ability to scale up for less investment.

“It’s still very early stages - and other technologies, such as wind power, are far more advanced - but PVs are definitely on our development roadmap.”

Director of PETEC, Tom Taylor, adds: “The new technology will mean we can print large areas of solar cells, harvesting the sun’s energy in a cost-effective way.”

“The North-east has the skills,” Simon adds. “We have a lot of companies moving into speciality chemicals, and we also have a lot of printing companies.”

The downside is the UK has nowhere near the incentives offered by other countries for households to install PV panels.

“These incentives really drive the market,” says Simon. “The UK doesn’t have to supply to its domestic markets, we can supply overseas to generate income.

“The UK historically has been pioneering in these new technologies, it would be a shame if we saw the value of that dribble away to other countries.”

More importantly, it has resulted in a bustling support chain that supplies a range of modules, main controllers, batteries and inverters, enabling most manufacturers to purchase the key components domestically. The country’s output of PV cells in 2008 surpassed 2000MW, accounting for 37 percent of global production.

Makers are also taking advantage of falling costs, specifically of silicon solar cells. The component has dropped by 40 to 50 percent over the past six months and is now about $2 per watt.

Costs are expected to slide further to $1.10 or $1.20 by 4Q09.

Such projections are critical in procurement given that most portable PV power systems from China use silicon cells, which have a power conversion rating of 18 to 19 percent.

The use of thin-film cells, however, is forecast to surpass that of silicon types because of lower production costs, which average $1 to $2 per watt. The former can convert only 4 to 9 percent of energy but are said to work despite low-light environments. Thin-film cells can also be integrated into different surfaces such as windows and clothing.

There are now more than 40 thin-film solar cell makers globally. In China, at least nine new investment projects are underway, targeting a capacity of 900MW per year.

Meanwhile, solar cells based on other technologies such as copper indium gallium diselenide or CIGS and gallium arsenide or GaAS are still in the early stages of industrialization.

This steady development of related technologies is spurring vertical integration in the portable solar power systems line. As such, some suppliers can now produce many of the necessary parts and components in their manufacturing facilities.

Companies turn out between $30,000 and $200,000 worth of products monthly. More than 90 percent of the line is exported, mainly to Europe, the US and Africa. Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces are the key hubs, where more than 100 providers of PV cells and panels are likewise based.

At the same time Bosch also announced that it has taken over more than 60 percent of Johanna Solar AG (Brandenburg, Germany). Aleo in turn holds about 17 percent in Johanna Solar, a manufacturer of CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide), a non-silicon material for thin-film solar cells. Johanna's modules are sold via Aleo.

Bosch already holds the majority of solar cell manufacturer Ersol AG (Erfurt, Germany). A company spokesperson explained the two companies acquired now are active in different places of the value chain than Ersol: While Ersol produces silicon-based solar cells and thin-film solar cells based on silicon, Johanna complements these activities by manufacturing CIGS-based cells. Aleo is active further down the value chain in that it assembles the solar cells into modules. "Thus, we cover the entire value chain from ingots to modules", a Bosch spokesperson said.

Another motive for the Aleo takeover is that the company disposes of a far-flung sales network across Europe. "It has a well-established position in retail sales and among system integrators," the spokesperson said. The move also enables Bosch to expand its product spectrum, he added.

Organic photovoltaics, which rely on organic molecules to capture sunlight and convert it into electricity, in principle have significant advantages over traditional rigid silicon cells.

Organic photovoltaics start out as a kind of ink that can be applied to flexible surfaces to create solar cell modules that can be spread over large areas as easily as unrolling a carpet.This makes them easier to adapt to a wide variety of power applications, and considerably cheaper to make than traditional cells.

But there are still improvements needing to be made with the technology. Currently even the best organic photovoltaics convert less than six per cent of light into electricity, and last only a few thousand hours.

"The industry believes that if these cells can exceed 10 per cent efficiency and 10,000 hours of life, technology adoption will really accelerate," said NIST's David Germack.

"But to improve them, there is critical need to identify what's happening in the material, and at this point, we're only at the beginning."

The NIST team has advanced that understanding with their latest research, which provides a powerful new measurement strategy for organic photovoltaics that reveals ways to control how they form.

In the most common class of organic photovoltaics, the 'ink' is a blend of a polymer that absorbs sunlight, enabling it to give up its electrons, and ball-shaped carbon molecules called fullerenes that collect electrons.

When the ink is applied to a surface, the blend hardens into a film that contains a haphazard network of polymers intermixed with fullerene channels. In conventional devices, the polymer network should ideally all reach the bottom of the film while the fullerene channels should ideally all reach the top, so that electricity can flow in the correct direction out of the device.

However, if barriers of fullerenes form between the polymers and the bottom edge of the film, the cell's efficiency will be reduced.

In their work, the team were able to change the structure at the edges of the film by repulsing fullerenes while attracting the polymer. This was able to reduce the accumulation of fullerenes at the bottom of the film, and allowed the electrical current produced by the sun's rays more opportunities to travel to the right end of it.

Both of these changes could potentially improve the photovoltaic's efficiency or lifetime.

"We've identified some key parameters needed to optimise what happens at both edges of the film, which means the industry will have a strategy to optimise the cell's overall performance," Germack said.

"Right now, we're building on what we've learned about the edges to identify what happens throughout the film. This knowledge is really important to help industry figure out how organic cells perform and age so that their life spans will be extended."

Wafer-based silicon will continue as the dominant technology, but amorphous thin-film and cadmium telluride (CdTe) technologies will gain ground, and are expected to account for a combined 22% of the market by 2014, according to a major new study by IntertechPira.

The Future of Global Photovoltaics Markets provides detailed five-year forecasts of the PV market by technology, application and geographic region. It also addresses financial incentives, such as subsidies, feed-in tariffs and purchase power agreements and their effect on the development of the PV industry.

This new study provides volume and value forecasts to 2014 for major PV technologies, such as crystalline silicon, amorphous thin-film, CdTe, and CIS/CIGS (copper indium diselenide/copper indium gallium diselenide). It also provides forecasts for PV in on-grid and off-grid (such as building-integrated) applications and identifies regional growth opportunities.

A key focus of the study is the market outlook for pivotal PV-adopting regions such as Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and the US and how the investment and regulatory climate in these regions is likely to affect overall industry growth and widespread acceptance of PV.

“The mid to long-term, prospects for the solar industry are positive,” explains Publisher Adam Page “the subsidy models, which started in Japan and then Germany, have spread to increasing numbers of countries, and in many cases are starting to have significant impact on domestic market take-up of PV.”

The Future of Global Photovoltaics Markets is based on interviews with executives in a cross-section of companies that supply raw materials, cells and modules as well as those that provide system integration services. It is also based on extensive analyses of published literature and in-house data built up from years of gathering information developed from conducting market research and technology studies as well as executive-level conferences for the PV industry.

The study provides in-depth quantitative data and analyses of the PV industry, including growth forecasts to 2014 broken down by technology, end-use application and region. This report is comprehensive in that it addresses silicon-based PV cells as well as emerging PV technologies and details the most significant market and technology drivers along the PV supply chain. The study is designed to help those in the photovoltaics business meet today’s challenges and target key sectors.

The Future of Global Photovoltaics Markets is available from July 2009. For further information please contact Stephen Hill on +44 (0)1372 802025 or via e-mail Stephen Hill or visit http://www.intertechpira.com/

Press contact: For editorial queries, details of the report or an expanded article please contact: Rebecca Leigh +44(0)1372 802207 Rebecca Leigh

IntertechPira

IntertechPira provides market research, strategic and technical consulting and conferences to niche, emerging and high growth industries, including; photonics, biomaterials, plastic electronics, home and personal care, alternative energy and chemicals, minerals and performance materials. IntertechPira is a division of Pira International and was formed following the acquisition of Intertech by Pira International in 2005.

IntertechPira runs major European and US Photovoltaic Summits annually attracting delegates from around the globe. It offers consultancy services and has published a range of forecasts and technical studies for the PV and related industries.

Source: IntertechPira: http://www.intertechpira.com/

Please visit our site today to find out more: http://www.renewableenergyindiaexpo.com/sectors.html

According to ENN, this offers significant advantages: With this technology, layers of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon are applied to the glass substrate. The layer of amorphous silicon absorbs short-wave light, while the other layer absorbs long-wave light. So, the PV products are able to efficiently convert solar energy into electricity even in less than perfect weather conditions, such as low or diffused light and in hot climates.

Because the modules are cheaper to manufacture than standard crystalline modules, the energy payback time of ENN's modules is "half of that for crystalline silicon modules" claims ENN. The company is mass producing its PV modules in order to reach 60 MW production capacity by the end of this year.

The SunFab line is making big news in the PV industry, offering very low production costs per Watt. As well as SunFab, ENN Solar has incorporated KUKA robots from Germany, glass substrates from Japan, and connector boxes from Switzerland into its manufacturing process.

Through the partnership CECIC will primarily be responsible for project investment and solar project development and Suntech will supply solar products, system design and technical support. Suntech and CECIC plan to focus on the development of large scale on-grid projects, urban BIPV projects, rural off-grid projects, and wind-solar hybrid projects.

"CECIC is pleased to establish this strategic agreement with Suntech," explained Mr. Xiaokang Wang, General Manager of CECIC. "Suntech has proven itself to be a global leader in technological innovation and product quality in the field of photovoltaics and is clearly dedicated to sustainability initiatives. This partnership represents an important step forward in our mission to fulfill the mandates set forth by the Chinese government to achieve environmental sustainability through renewable energy generation."

Dr. Zhengrong Shi, Chairman and CEO of Suntech remarked, "We are pleased to cement our relationship with CECIC. CECIC's extensive experience in project financing and project development combined with Suntech's high efficiency solar solutions will provide a strong foundation for the development of solar projects in China. Solar energy will help to simultaneously curb greenhouse gas emissions while meeting energy demand in China."

Projects developed through this collaboration may include solar projects previously announced by Suntech including those in Qinghai province; Shaanxi province; Shizuishan city, Ningxia province; Panzhihua city, Sichuan province; and Jiangsu province. Separate project-specific agreements will be signed prior to the implementation of solar projects related to this agreement.

About China Energy Conservation Investment Co. Ltd. (CECIC)

CECIC is a wholly state-owned enterprise and the largest Chinese energy company dedicated to environmental protection. Its primary focuses are energy conservation, emissions reduction, waste treatment, environmental cleanup, and new energy technology. Its current operations have resulted in the recycling of 2 million tons of industrial waste, the reduction of 5 million tons of carbon dioxide, and the substitution of 1.6 million tons of coal per annum.

About Suntech

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE:STP) is the world's leading solar energy company as measured by production output of crystalline silicon solar modules. Suntech designs, develops, manufactures, and markets premium quality, high-output, cost-effective and environmentally friendly solar products for electric power applications in the residential, commercial, industrial, and public utility sectors. Suntech's patent-pending Pluto technology for crystalline silicon solar cells improves power output by up to 12% compared to conventional production methods. Suntech also offers one of the broadest ranges of building-integrated solar products under the MSK Solar Design Line(TM).

Suntech designs and delivers commercial and utility scale solar power systems through its wholly owned subsidiary Suntech Energy Engineering and will own and operate projects greater than 10 megawatts in the United States through Gemini Solar Development Company, a joint venture with Renewable Ventures, a Fotowatio company. With regional headquarters in China, Switzerland and San Francisco and sales offices worldwide, Suntech is passionate about improving the environment we live in and dedicated to developing advanced solar solutions that enable sustainable development. For more information, please visit http://www.suntech-power.com/ .

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements, and includes the ability of CECIC to successfully provide project investment and development; the ability of Suntech to successfully supply solar modules, system design and technical support. Such statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Suntech's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20-F. Suntech does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.

The investment decision was announced in the presence of French Sustainable Development Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo. “I salute the decision of EDF Energies Nouvelles and First Solar to invest and create jobs in France’s solar sector, which has begun to take off since the Grenelle de l’Environnement,” he said. “This investment represents a veritable turning point for the photovoltaic industry and confirms that France is more than ever in a position to play a leading role globally.”

EDF Energies Nouvelles raised €500 million last year to finance its photovoltaic development ambitions, targeting 500MWp in PV installations by 2012. EDF had previously used First Solar’s thin film modules on several projects.

“This decision by First Solar and EDF EN is a sign of our shared commitment to the future of solar electricity,” noted Mike Ahearn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of First Solar. “We commend President Nicolas Sarkozy’s leadership in promoting long-term policies to build a more sustainable energy future not just for France but the world. Countries that create market frameworks that enable solar and other renewable energies to achieve commercial scale will reap the greatest benefits in private sector investment, technological innovation and job creation.”

This is the first new capacity expansion program First Solar has announced since initiating construction of multiple new plants in Malyasia, several years ago. With this new partnership, the first the company has undertaken, the CdTe leader will have manufacturing operations in the U.S., Germany, Malaysia and now France.

Thin film solar cells are considered the next generation of solar cells and are expected to be considerably cheaper because they need much less material and energy in their production than today's photovoltaic modules.

Researchers around the globe are racing to develop efficient thin film solar cells. The solar cells made in Luxembourg are based on a semiconductor made of copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS) and made by a process with the potential for highest performance. Furthermore, the scientists of the University of Luxembourg produced another solar cell based on a new cheaper material, which does not contain the costly indium, and made by a low cost galvanic process. This solar cell has reached an efficiency of 3.2 percent. This is already close to the world record: the worldwide best cell based on this new material and prepared by a similar low cost process shows an efficiency of 3.4 percent.

The laboratory for photovoltaics of the University of Luxembourg is a group of researchers developing new materials and processes for solar cells. Of all the available thin film technologies, solar cells based on CIGS have shown the highest efficiencies in research and in production. Prof Susanne Siebentritt, head of the laboratory, explains: "Currently we can produce the heart of the solar cells, the so called absorber layer and the buffer. But for completing the solar cells we rely on the help of our colleagues from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin". The luxembourgish laboratory focuses not only on the development of solar cells but also on furthering the physical understanding of the materials and interfaces involved in these solar cells.

The laboratory for photovoltaics (LPV) was founded in April 2007 within the framework of the TDK Europe professorship, a public-private partnership funded by TDK corporation and the University of Luxembourg. "We have just a few months ago moved into our new labs. This allows us finally to start the solar cell preparation. These are really our first solar cells and they have already reached competitive efficiencies", Prof Siebentritt says, "I am very proud of my team".

Germany utility E.ON AG (EOAN.XE) said Tuesday it agreed to acquire French photovoltaic company Société Conilhac Energies S.A.S.

But Bradford added that there is skepticism that grid parity is within reach, especially among those who last looked at photovoltaic system costs back in 2007, when they were significantly higher. "I'm not sure that a lot of people believe it," Bradford said.

Others have predicted previously that a majority of the U.S. would achieve grid parity by 2015. But Bradford's assertion that 99 percent of the country could access solar generated power for no more than 5 cents/kWH more than grid power appears to be a first.

Andrew Beebe, managing director of energy solutions at SunTech America, the U.S. subsidiary of China's SunTech Power Holdings, said it was the first time he had seen such an aggressive prediction. "It's great, assuming that it is true," Beebe said. He added that research from The Prometheus Institute is generally very accurate.

Getting solar power within 5 cents/kWH of grid generated power would be significant because it would close the economic gap and allow more environmentally conscious consumers and organizations to switch to solar power without feeling the financial pain, said Shyam Mehta, a senior analyst with GTM Research.

"The economics need to get closer so that the externalities can come into play," Mehta said. "They won't come into play if the economics aren't close enough."

Bradford said solar in the U.S. will get a big boost from economic subsidies as part of the financial rescue package enacted by the U.S. last November and from the huge fiscal stimulus pushed through earlier this year. At the same time, he said, government incentives to push solar in European countries like Spain and Germany are, at least temporarily, on the decline. As a result, Bradford said, the U.S. has a shot to become the biggest market for photovoltaics and one of the largest producers over the next few years.

"The U.S. is going to be an extraordinary market," Bradford said. Later, he added, "If this [solar] industry is going to be a revolution, I think now is the time."

In a panel discussion following Bradford's presentation, Julie Blunden, vice president of public policy and corporate communications at SunPower Corp., said the growth of the solar industry could be slowed by political forces as the solar industry attempts to enter the power industry.

Intersolar North America is a tradeshow for the photovoltaic industry co-located with Semicon West.

The entire system is wearable and integrated into a device resembling headphones. The system can provide more than 1mW on average indoor, which is more than enough for the targeted application.

Thermoelectric generators using body heat typically show a drop in generated power when the ambient temperature is in range of the body temperature. Especially outside, the photovoltaic cells in the hybrid system counter this energy drop and ensure a continuous power generation. Moreover, they serve as part of the radiators for the thermoelectric generator, which are required to obtain high efficiency.
Compared to a previous EEG demonstrator developed within Holst Centre, which was solely powered by thermoelectric generators positioned on the forehead, the hybrid system has a reduced size and weight. Combined with full autonomous operation, no maintenance and an acceptable low heat flow from the head, it further increases the patient's autonomy and quality of life. Potential applications are detection of imbalance between the two halves of the brain, detection of certain kinds of brain trauma and monitoring of brain activity.

The system is a tangible demonstrator of Holst Centre's Human++ program researching healthcare, lifestyle and sport applications of body area networks. Future research targets further reduction of the power consumption of the different system components of the body area network as well as a significant reduction of the production cost by using micromachining. Interested parties can get more insight in this research or license the underlying technologies through membership of the program.

Technical details
The thermoelectric generator is composed of six thermoelectric units made up from miniature commercial thermopiles. Each of the two radiators, on left and right sides of the head, has an external area of 4×8cm² that is made of high-efficiency Si photovoltaic cells. Further, thermally conductive comb-type structures (so-called thermal shunts) have been used to eliminate the thermal barrier between the skin and the thermopiles that is caused by the person's hair on the thermoelectric generator.
The EEG system uses IMEC's proprietary ultra-low-power biopotential readout application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to extract high-quality EEG signals with micro-power consumption. A low-power digital-signal processing block encodes the extracted EEG data, which are sent to a PC via a 2.4GHz wireless radio link. The whole system consumes only 0.8mW, well below the power produced to provide full autonomy.

Wayne Boulais will be active in the company, having been elected to the SolFocus Board of Directors.

SOURCE: Apex Venture Partners

Six regions and provinces in Northwest China are the most suited for installing solar PV stations in terms of sunshine days. These are Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Shaanxi, said Shen Yanbo, an expert from the National Climate Center.

Workers at a solar PV cell factory in Jiangsu province. Solar PV cells are considered vital to address the nation's energy needs. [CFP]

The government's new policy would come as a boost for solar energy in the domestic market and create greater opportunities for companies involved in the entire solar supply chain, said Zhang Shuai, a new energy analyst with Sinolink Securities.

Top panel-makers, including Suntech, Yingli Green Energy and LDK Solar, are expected to benefit from the revised goal.

The solar industry has been hit hard since the end of last year due to freezing credit resulting from the financial crisis and an oversupply of solar panels that have cut prices sharply.

China is considering enhancing incentives at a time when European countries such as Germany and Spain, the largest solar markets, are pulling back on incentives, thereby slowing the market.

Although China has been the largest solar panels supplier in the last two years, it played an insignificant role in the domestic solar photovoltaic (PV) market. But new policies are spurring a change this year.

The government in March approved a subsidy of 20 yuan per watt for solar PV systems larger than 50 kW fixed on building roofs.

The subsidy, which could cover half the cost of installing the system, was popular among developers, attracting applications equivalent to the building of 1 gW of solar power, Reuters reported earlier.

For ground-mounted projects, the government is paying a feed-in tariff for the electricity generated, instead of a subsidy based on the projects' capacity.

DID has more details on each of the task orders…

A breakdown of the individual task orders follows:

• Task order #10: Installation of photovoltaic systems at Navy shore facilities in Maryland (70%) and Washington, DC (30%); worth up to $8.6 million, with 2 proposals received.

• Task order #11: Installation of photovoltaic systems at Navy shore facilities in Florida (50%), Mississippi (20%), and Texas (30%); worth up to $66.4 million, with 2 proposals received.

• Task order #12: Installation of photovoltaic, solar ventilation preheat, and solar lighting systems at Navy shore facilities in the Norfolk, VA area; worth up to $25.8 million, with 2 proposals received.

The company thinks the technologies could, when commercialized, reduce the cost per kilowatt hour of solar energy, allowing it to be more competitive with other energy sources. China Nuvo said it’s finalizing utility patents for those it acquired from Photovoltaics that are currently provisional. China Nuvo wasn’t yet ready to announce how the newly acquired technologies fit into the company’s business model, adding that details would be announced once they were fully developed.

China Nuvo acquired exclusive, worldwide licensing rights to additional solar cell technology from Photovoltaics in 2006, purchasing the technology 2008. The technology includes multi-layer photovoltaic cells incorporating integral light-transmitting materials that act as wave guides in directing light to targeted areas, according to the company.

To minimize startup costs of solar cell manufacturing, China Nuvo has an agreement with Pioneer Materials to establish a pilot production line by building out and modifying Pioneer’s existing manufacturing facility in the Sichuan province. Pioneer supplies advanced materials for thin-film photovoltaic processing (see China thin film industry needs industrial lift).

Earlier this year, Jiashan, China-based solar wafer maker ReneSola (NYSE:SOL) secured a loan of RMB 800 million ($117 million) to build its polysilicon plant in Sichuan province, China (see ReneSola secures $117M loan for polysilicon plant).

At its factory in Japan, Toyota has already been using rooftop solar panels to produce enough electricity to power 500 homes. The system cuts 740 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions off Toyota’s carbon footprint annually.

To further the rumours, Toyota’s partner in developing and producing hybrid batteries - Panasonic Corp - is scheduled to complete a takeover of Japanese rival Sanyo Electric Co, a leader in solar energy, next year. That is expected to heighten Toyota’s strength in producing solar cars.

Furthermore, the green car manufacturer of the year, according to voters at TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk, has begun experimenting with solar panels on top of a ship carrier for auto exports.

The U.S. so far produces no electricity from offshore winds, putting it far behind the United Kingdom, Denmark and other northern European countries that have been developing offshore wind for nearly 20 years.

"We are entering a new day for energy production in the United States - a time of clean energy from renewable domestic sources on our Outer Continental Shelf," Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar said in a statement.

"Other nations have been using offshore wind energy for more than a decade," Salazar said. "We made the development of offshore wind energy a top priority for Interior. The technology is proven, effective and available and can create new jobs for Americans while reducing our expensive and dangerous dependence on foreign oil."

Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden are the world's largest producers of electricity from offshore winds.

The exploratory leases would allow wind companies to measure wind speed and intensity and other factors from towers built six to 18 miles offshore. The next steps would be to apply for a permit for a test turbine, and then there would be more government reviews before they could construct turbines, a process that could take several years or more, said Interior spokesman Frank Quimby.

The leases went to Bluewater Wind New Jersey Energy; Fishermen's Energy of New Jersey; Deepwater Wind and Bluewater Wind Delaware.

Willett Kempton, a professor at the University of Delaware College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, lead a study in 2007 that examined the wind potential from North Carolina to Massachusetts.

The study, which appeared in Geophysical Research Letters, found that if wind was tapped offshore with turbines in water up to 100 meters (330 feet) deep, which is just within technological reach, the coastal states would produce enough electricity to satisfy all electrical needs, power all light vehicles and replace heating fuel for all buildings.

According to Kempton, Delaware's average offshore winds have the potential to power between 1.2 million and 1.5 million homes.

Kempton said the leases Salazar announced were "the first concrete step of the development of what I believe will be a very large industry in the Northeast initially and then around the coastal regions of the country."

Texas, already the No. 1 wind state, has been working since 2005 to be the first state with offshore wind as well. Texas waters extend seven miles offshore, unlike the three-mile limit in other states. The state granted five exploratory leases in 2005 to a Louisiana company, Wind Energy Systems Technology, which built a scientific measurements tower seven miles off Galveston. As yet, not electric production has begun.

Kempton said that existing technology doesn't allow for turbines that could withstand Category 5 hurricanes because it was developed in Denmark, where they're not an issue, but such turbines could be built, he said. "It's not that hard to engineer."

Cape Wind, a wind farm planned off Cape Cod, Mass., is still under review by the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department.

For a productive working environment, the architects proposed interior and exterior features that would encourage a balanced working style. The interior of the office includes an adjustable ventilation system for comfort, as well as surface lighting that will provide more even illumination than traditional lighting. The outside of the building is designed with a verdant green roof and central courtyard — both to invite employees outdoors and to create opportunities for mingling.

To make this development eco-friendly, the architects approached energy efficiency in three ways: first, conservation through efficient insulation; second, re-use by converting kinetic energy into electrical energy (although the proposal does not give specific details about this process); third, clean energy production through the use of photovoltaic cells and wind turbines.

RAU Architects is currently working to implement the Green Office 2015 concept in three different locations.

The clean energy sector has certainly been on a tear in recent years, and there will be a lot more money flowing in to meet government-backed demand.

Here's the "but":

The recession has walloped the clean energy sector like every other, and no one is going on a hiring spree right now. Companies have shelved plans for wind farms, solar parks and biofuels plants. Some have laid off workers. Others have been forced to seek bankruptcy protection.

Still, this is a growth field, and most agree business will pick up later this year or in 2010.

Renewable energy provides a small fraction of electricity used today but the wind and solar sectors are among the fastest growing in the United States.

Between 1998 and 2007, renewable energy employment grew by about 9.1 percent, according to a recent study by The Pew Charitable Trusts that was based on an extensive jobs database. That still totals only about 770,000 jobs, or about one half of 1 percent of all jobs in the United States, according to the study. And the period under study ended before the recession struck, so it remains unclear how well the new energy sector has fared since then.

Yet there are early signs that, in addition to government funding, venture capital continues to pour into renewable energy.

Here are some questions and answers about the industry, including what kind of jobs are available.

Q: What kinds of renewable energy jobs are there?

A: Just about any job found in a traditional industry can apply to renewables. But a few fields stand out.

Solar and wind turbine manufacturing plants will need assembly line workers. Mechanics, electricians and maintenance workers will be needed for wind farms, solar parks and biofuels plants. And many types of science and engineering positions will be central to the growth of the industry.

Q: How is the federal money being allocated?

The package includes about $21 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy manufacturers, which has been a key source of funding to help them lure additional investments.

About $11 billion is being earmarked for improving the nation's overcrowded, aging electricity system.

Other allocations include: $6 billion, energy efficiency projects; $5 billion, weatherization program for low-income housing; $2 billion, advanced battery technology; $500 million, job training; $300 million, fuel-efficient vehicles for federal government use.

Q: What particular parts of the renewable energy sector are hiring?

A: About 65 percent of the jobs today are with companies that recycle waste, cut greenhouse gas pollution and handle water conservation, according to the Pew study released this month.

There also has been job growth this year at major utilities that are quickly adding a big solar component to the business, said Neal Lurie of the American Solar Energy Society.

Q: What kind of experience is needed?

A: Many types of jobs require little or no additional training and transition smoothly to the green industry — accountants, stock clerks, security guards or electricians are all represented in the field.

Community colleges are offering training classes for more specialized jobs, such as solar panel installation, wind turbine repair and biofuels processing.

An electrician, for example, can spend a couple of weeks in training and then begin installing solar panels. A plumber can be trained in a few weeks to install solar thermal water heaters, said Roger Bezdek, president of consultancy Management Information Services Inc.

Q: What is the salary range?

A: A study released this year by Management Information Services and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics detailed some median annual salaries:

Insulation worker, $30,800; recycling worker, $26,400; energy audit specialist, $40,300; environmental engineer, $76,000; environmental engineer technician, $42,800; microbiologist, $64,600; physicist, $93,300.

Q: What's the best way to break into the field?

A: Do a little research to figure out where your interests lie, think about your work experience, and consider what sector is growing in your region, or in a place where you'd be willing to relocate. Volunteer at nonprofit organizations or tour businesses to see the technology and how it works.

There are a number of Web sites that list renewable energy jobs and job hunting tips, such as the American Solar Energy Society, Renewable Energy Jobs.Net.

Q: Do I have to move to find a green job?

A: Maybe. There are states with a stronger green energy base and, historically, more green jobs per capita.

Oregon is tops for green, with more than 1 percent of the state's total job base in the clean energy sector, according to Pew researchers. Once again, though, the recession complicates matters: In Oregon, 33 of the state's 36 counties had unemployment rates of at least 10 percent last month, the state reported Monday.

There are, however, some states to keep an eye on when the economy does rebound.

Maine is a close runner-up to Oregon for green jobs per capita; Massachusetts, Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho and California also have a higher-than-average number of jobs in the field. Colorado is big on wind, and Arizona, not surprisingly, attracts solar types. But so does New Jersey — that state is pursuing solar energy aggressively, and utilities there are plowing millions into new sun-powered projects.

• American Solar Energy Society: http://www.ases.org/
• Renewable Energy Jobs.Net: http://www.renewableenergyjobs.net

The tour agenda is still being finalized as we go to press, but it will likely include Carmel Blanchard’s home off Route 131. If enough people are interested, it may also visit local renewable installations including solar domestic hot water – flat-plate collectors and wood boiler – and off-grid photovoltaics (solar electric). An earlier tour attracted a crowd of 20-plus to Peter and Donna Hudkins’ off grid home in Chester, said Solar Store owner and tour organizer Dallas Cox. “We may solicit them for another tour opportunity.”

The Hudkins’ house is an example of a modern Green Build Council Platinum Signature House that is neither a camp nor inconvenient. The 2000 sf house is modern, runs on a minimum of sustainable energy, and is comfortable and beautiful.

The Hudkins said their goal was to make a homestead sustainable in a way similar to the early hillside farms of old Vermont, where they would raise their own food and supply their own energy. The center of the house is a 20,000 pound mass of stone and masonry in the form of a Russian style masonry wood stove, which is the primary source of heat for the house.

During cold weather they run one or two very hot fires a day for 1/2 to 2 hours. When the fire is out, the flu is closed and the heat is stored in the stone mass of the stove. The stones then radiate the heat throughout the day keeping the house at an average of 70° in the winter on four cords of wood.

The walls have an insulating value of R30 and the ceilings are R40. Their’s is a passive solar design of the south facing house with windows wrapping the house looking east, south and west and the roofs overhang to keep the sun out of the house from May to September for cooling and shining into the house the rest of the season for warmth.

Most of the Hudkins house is built with pine and hardwood logged from the property, and is heated with wood harvested from the land in a sustainable manner. To the east south and west of the house is open land on which sheep are pastured, berries are grown, and vegetables are raised. They also have beehives for honey and pollinating the plants.

The tour may also be visiting Mario and Isabella Gattorno’s place in Proctorsville as well. They have a grid-tied photovoltaic system with flat-plate solar domestic hot water panels, as well as a solar pool heater.

Possible other locations include Dave Coleman, of Springfield, who has an off-grid home with PV and Solar Domestic Hot Water.

“We will be learning about Solar Electricity (PV) both grid-tied and off-grid, Solar Domestic Hot Water and Wind Turbines,” Cox said. “Come see how this technology can be used in everyday life to cut down on our carbon footprint, save money, increase home value, and protect ourselves from the eventual rise in energy costs.

“State and Federal Incentives are adding up to as much as half of the final cost. Banks have created Renewable Energy Home Equity Loans. Plus, grants exist for businesses and homes. Oil, gas, electricity, wood, and all other sources of energy are only going to get more and more expensive. There has never been a better time to make this investment for a sustainable future.”

Price Breakdown

It's not so easy in solar thermal. Concentrated solar thermal plants in the desert store heat from the sun in large tanks of molten salt. That can be used to create steam to run a generator for a few hours after the sun goes down.

But in homes it is not so easy. Although roughly 75 percent of the homes and commercial buildings in the U.S. could potentially derive some of their power from solar systems, most homes aren't located in the center of the desert and thus don't get the kind of solar radiation a CSP plant will.

To make solar thermal economical, many of these buildings will need seasonal storage. "There is a mismatch," she said. "They need systems so that we can store it in the summer for use in the winter."

Which brings us to the headline. For long-term storage, storing energy in chemical bonds – the secret sauce behind fuel cells – may be the answer. Theoretically, heat generated in the summer could be used to generate a reaction, which could then be unwound later in the year.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institut, for instance are looking at ways to take heat from the sun, zinc, oxygen and a dash of carbon to create zinc oxide and carbon monoxide. Zinc oxide could then be unwound in further reactions to produce hydrogen for fuel cells and zinc, which can be used to release electrons in other reactions. Some researchers have proposed storing heat through a zinc-to-zinc oxide reaction.

For more near-term storage, phase change materials – materials like zeolites and desiccants that move relatively easily from solid to liquid or liquid to gas states – could be used.

And for really near-term storage, says Werner Koldehoff, a board member of the German Solar Industry Association, households could use the ultimate phase change material: water. Water could be turned into ice (through a solar-driven chiller) and changed into water. 

In Germany, energy storage for some residential thermal systems is accomplished through storing liquids heated by the sun in pipes in the earth. 

 NV Energy is now more ready to meet Nevada’s portfolio standard which requires that 25% of energy be generated by renewable resources and energy efficiency and conservation programs by 2025.

 “This is another major step in our commitment to bringing power from renewable resources to the citizens of Nevada,” remarked Michael Yackira, NV Energy president and CEO.

 “American Capital Energy is excited about the Searchlight Solar I solar PV project,” agreed Tom Hunton, CEO of American Capital Energy. “We are honoured to have been selected to work with NV Energy to deliver clean, renewable solar energy to southern Nevada.”

Intersolar North America is the most diverse international business-to-business trade show in the United States for the global solar industry. As the only solar exhibition in North America dedicated to recruiting companies across the solar supply chain from around the world, Intersolar helps the industry improve global supply, distribution, training, regulation and business issues to accelerate market transformation and advance solar as a significant part of the global energy supply.

Intersolar North America 2009 has tripled its floor space and features an expected 500 exhibitors and 15,000 trade visitors in San Francisco’s Moscone Center West on July 14-16. The conference, held at the InterContinental Hotel next door, also increases its size and program to over 25 tracks, circa 150 speakers and 1,600 expected attendees. Intersolar North America - Connecting Solar Business

Conference
The 2009 Conference Program has been finalized and registration is open.
more

“Texas should be a prime location for solar, but it currently generates a relatively small amount of solar energy”, said Bob Sohn, senior advisor for Pearl planning. “Our hope is that our solar partnership with CPS Energy will serve to encourage further development of solar projects in Texas”.

It might be needed. The Texas legislature failed to pass the bulk of legislation intended to promote solar energy this session. Texas had 69 alternative energy bills to consider of which 50 supported the solar industry. Only a bill that will enable homeowners to pay for solar installations using government funds passed. The state also killed a bill that would have created a statewide rebate program for solar panels. The bill that had strong support from both parties failed on a procedural point.

The solar array at Pearl Brewery is so far the largest solar project in the state. But not for long, in March the Austin City Council decided to spend $250 million on building a solar facility in Webberville east of Austin. The plant, that is scheduled to start operating by the end of 2010, will be the biggest solar facility in the US.

"Today's agreement further signifies our commitment to meeting the industry's demand for reliable, scalable and cost-competitive modules," said Mr. Liansheng Miao , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yingli Green Energy. "We are particularly excited to work with Recurrent Energy as they are pursuing an aggressive market development strategy with a strong pipeline of projects across North America and Europe."

"The combination of Yingli Green Energy's high quality modules, manufacturing scale and competitive pricing fits well with our development goals, especially within the rapidly-growing utility market," said Arno Harris , Chief Executive Officer of Recurrent Energy. "With this strategic partnership, we're confident in our ability to provide industry-leading distributed solar power to customers worldwide."

About Yingli Green Energy

Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited (NYSE: YGE) is one of the world's leading vertically integrated PV product manufacturers. Yingli Green Energy designs, manufactures and sells PV modules and designs, assembles, sells and installs PV systems that are connected to an electricity transmission grid or operate on a stand-alone basis. Based in Baoding, China, Yingli Green Energy sells its PV modules to system integrators and distributors located in various markets around the world, including Germany, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Belgium, France, China and the United States. For more information, please visit http://www.yinglisolar.com .

About Recurrent Energy

Recurrent Energy is a distributed power company and a leading provider of solar energy. The company solves rising global demand for clean energy by developing and owning solar power plants located in areas of high demand where power is needed most. Recurrent Energy sells clean electricity to commercial, government, and utility customers at competitive rates via Power Purchase Agreements or Feed-in Tariffs. Notable projects include a 5 megawatt planned installation with The City and County of San Francisco, which will be the largest municipal solar installation in the United States upon completion. For more information on Recurrent Energy and distributed solar power, please visit http://www.recurrentenergy.com .

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond Yingli Green Energy's control, which may cause Yingli Green Energy's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward- looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in Yingli Green Energy's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Yingli Green Energy does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.

    For further information, please contact:
For Yingli Green Energy
In China:
Qing Miao
Director, Investor Relations
Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited
Tel:   +86-312-3100-502
Email: ir@yinglisolar.com
Courtney Shike
Brunswick Group LLC
Tel:   +86-10-6566-2256
Email: yingli@brunswickgroup.com
In the United States:
Katie Cralle
Brunswick Group LLC
Tel:   +1-212-333-3810
Email: kcralle@brunswickgroup.com
For Recurrent Energy
Helena Kimball
Director, Marketing Communications
Recurrent Energy
Tel:   +1-415-675-1513
Email: helena@recurrentenergy.com

The solar power purchase agreements (PPAs), long-term energy financing solutions, help customers turn to solar energy without the business or costs of solar facility ownership, operation, or maintenance, says SPP. A solar PPA allows SPP's host customers to pay only for the energy produced by the system, while SPP, alone and/or through its subsidiaries, develops, operates, and maintains the system for the length of the agreement, usually over twenty years. SPP's host customers can enjoy predictable energy rates for the life of their agreement.

SPP's dedicated asset management team operates each facility using web-based monitoring technology, which provides performance data every 15 minutes and operation alerts as necessary. SPP manages all aspects of preventative maintenance and repairs when needed.

The Caltech solar system features a 239 kW fixed rooftop array on the Holliston parking garage. The system at BT's office building in El Segundo is a 601 kW fixed rooftop and elevated system, including a tracking system over the main parking lot. The tracking modules move during the day to follow the sun, thereby increasing energy production. The system is expected to generate approximately one thousand GWh of renewable electricity each year. The four Safeway stores in Monrovia, Oxnard, Corona, and Murrieta total 821 kW in size, and are all fixed rooftop systems.

Financing of the solar facilities was partially provided by Bank of America in the form of a tax equity investment and Energy Investors Funds through its United States Power Fund III.

"Our panel of judges from across the solar industry knows all too well how difficult it is to expand manufacturing operations when burdened with silane safety infrastructure and procedures," said David Owen, managing director of Photovoltaics International. "Sixtron's technology is alleviating this liability, and we believe it will become an important part of solar's journey toward grid parity."

The SunBox is an on-site gas generation system that uses a solid polymer source material to safely and effectively deposit anti-reflective and passivation layers on crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. The SunBox system is plug & play compatible with industry standard plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) equipment on both new and existing manufacturing lines.

Prior to the introduction of the SunBox, anti-reflective coatings and passivation layers have primarily been deposited using silane. This pyrophoric gas, which requires costly safety and handling procedures, multiplies manufacturers' financial and operational risks.

"The SunBox delivers process improvement to solar cell manufacturers while at the same time reducing both capital expenses and operating costs," said Zbigniew Barwicz, CEO of Sixtron. "Our silane-free system provides our customers with a path to improved cell efficiencies without major disruption of manufacturing processes. This award is independent recognition by top cell manufacturers that the SunBox provides exceptional value to the industry."

The SunBox coating system is sold directly to solar cell and equipment manufacturers by Sixtron, and is currently being evaluated by leading equipment providers for inclusion into existing and future turnkey offerings.

About Sixtron Advanced Materials

Sixtron is a private company focused on developing scalable and cost-effective industrial coating systems that avoid the costs and hazards associated with shipping silane gas and handling it on-site at PV fabs. The proprietary Sixtron SunBox system delivers gas using industry standard PECVD equipment to deposit anti-reflective and backside passivation coatings on crystalline silicon solar cells. The company has worked closely throughout its product development with leading research organizations such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO and the University Center of Excellence for Photovoltaic Research and Education (UCEP) in Atlanta, GA. Sixtron has raised over $12 million since inception from Ventures West Capital, Inovia Capital and Cycle Capital. For more information, visit www.sixtron.com.

About Photovoltaics International:

Photovoltaics International is a dynamic new media platform that is designed to give real world manufacturing information to decision makers and implementers responsible for producing solar cells, modules and thin film. Photovoltaics International independently collects and disseminates news and in-depth technical information exclusively for PV manufacturers through its website PV-Tech. With over 12 years' experience in covering technical manufacturing for the semiconductor industry, the publishers of Photovoltaics International are uniquely placed to use their editorial expertise to create a much-needed and worthwhile resource for PV manufacturers to help them implement technology that will achieve price and yield goals now and in the future.

"Today we'd like to announce we're kicking off the solar energy revolution in Minnesota!" the Saint Paul Democrat told a group of alternative energy supporters and media who gathered for an event highlighting the new initiative.

"If you're a homeowner and you want to install solar you can get rebates of up to $10,000 to put solar on your home," Anderson remarked, "Pair that up with a federal tax credit and you are good part of the way toward paying for your solar installation."

At least $25 million in stimulus money has also been set aside for grants to businesses, schools, government and economic development agencies seeking to create projects that incorporate solar or other renewable technology.

Christopher Childs, a longtime renewable energy advocate and solar homeowner, told KARE he was really gratified to see years of work and grassroots lobbying on behalf of solar begin to pay off in Minnesota.

"It makes us feel we're justified," Childs explained, "That we were right all along and there really is something here and it's something that can be shared now with an awful lot of people, including people who couldn't afford it before."

He's confident that the 3-kilowatt array on the roof of his 1911 home on Saint Paul's west side will eventually pay for itself in terms of saved energy. But he sees beyond his own bottom line.

"I think of it as a capital investment," Childs said, "Those panels are sitting on the roof of my house and they'll be producing power for probably 50 years."

"I'll be gone before they stop producing power."

Seeing Solar

Judy Poferl, a regional vice president for Xcel Energy, pointed out that the company is now the single largest producer of wind energy and welcomes the opportunity to harness homegrown sun power.

"The great thing about solar is it's going to make renewables very visible to most of our customers," Poferl told reporters noting that most consumers don't get to drive past the wind generator farms in rural parts of the state.

"Here people will be going down the street and, if our vision comes to life, the Central Corridor is going to have solar panels up and down and customers will actually see this is where we get our energy."

That was a reference to a plan to turn University Avenue in Saint Paul into a "solar showcase" which, among other things, will help power the new light rail line planned there.

"It is ground breaking," Saint Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said, "It is remarkable. And it will be a national model."

"Years from now we will look back on this legislative session and say there was something very fundamental that happened."

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who is planning a huge solar installation on the roof of the Minneapolis Convention Center, called this a milestone for the state.

"This is our moment right now," Rybak asserted, "We're talking about the sun, but we're also talking about jobs!"

"This is the way we change our climate, and this is the way we make sure Minnesota is THE center of renewable energy in the world."

Both Minneapolis and Saint Paul have been recognized as Solar America Cities by the Department of Energy, and have launched an initiative to increase the solar capacity of the Twin Cities by 500 percent in the next two years.

The solar effort features partnerships with a wide spectrum of interest groups and utilities.

The list includes Xcel, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society, the Green Institute, Fresh Energy, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, League of Minnesota Cities, freEner-g, District Energy, Center for Energy and Environment and the Neighborhood Energy Connection.

The eclectic crowd that gathered at the Capitol led Rybak to quip, "Senator Senator (Scott) Dibble just said to me we've got the whole 'renewable energy mafia' out there. If there's any mafia I want to be part of it's you, the people out there who have done phenomenal work."

The Minnesota Office of Energy Security will coordinate most of the stimulus grants.

Source: www.Kare11.com