Privately held Nanosolar Inc. of San Francisco announced today that it plans to build a solar factory that will manufacture 200 million thin-film solar cells a year, making it one of the largest — if not the largest — in the world. We’re talking 430 megawatts of solar output per year. The company said it has negotiated ”just above” $100 million in financing, which would go toward construction and operation of the San Francisco factory and a solar panel fabrication plant to be built in Germany. What’s interesting is that Jeff Skoll, through his Capricorn Management investment firm, and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, are both investors in Nanosolar. The same Silicon Valley billionaires are also key investors in electric car maker Tesla Motors.

Interesting quote in the Nanosolar press release from fellow Canadian Skoll, whose production company Participant Productions is behind Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth documentary: “Coal-fired power plants are one of the biggest drivers of global warming. As we shift toward a future where the risks of global warming are recognized as both unsustainable and immoral, a company like Nanosolar can help us keep power affordable.”

Here, here… Jeff, if you’re reading (wishful thinking), drop me a line. I’d like to chat about your cleantech endeavours…

In other solar news, Sanyo Electric Co. said it plans to “accelerate” spending on its solar PV business to $349 million (U.S.) over five years. Revenue from its business has doubled, and the company expects to see sales triple in four years. The Japanese company said it will spend about $85 million at its Osaka plant to increase production capacity by 100 megawatts to 260 megawatts annually by March 2008. It will also make higher power panels with a 22 per cent conversion efficiency (up from 19.5 per cent). Sanyo is the world’s fourth biggest maker of solar panels.

For a great post on solar and what to watch for over the coming months and year, check out Rob Day’s Cleantech Investing. Rob talks about the aggressive rise of thin-film startups, the likelihood of a flood of solar IPOs this year, and speculates that consolidation of the industry will soon follow. I’ll add that there are more companies trying to play the high efficiency route, betting that the premium for higher efficiency cells will pay off because of the lower installation costs associated with them (i.e. higher energy conversion rate means fewer panels to install).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Main Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.