Greentech Media

It eventually will become the main supplier of modules to its Ontario and California solar projects, said OptiSolar spokesman Jeff Lettes. Hiring already has started, with nine of 33 job postings located in Sacramento.

“Hayward is OptiSolar’s initial manufacturing and R&D facility,” Lettes said. “Both facilities will have the same capacity per product line. Sacramento’s number of product lines will be significantly greater.”

Patent documents show that OptiSolar uses a chemical vapor-deposition process to coat a substrate with a layer of amorphous silicon far thinner than a human hair. The company plans to create a pancake-shaped hydrogen plasma cloud in a special chamber to enhance chemical reactions at lower temperatures, presumably leading to energy savings and reduced cost.

The company says its process uses less than 1 percent of the silicon contained in conventional crystalline cells, and because it doesn’t use exotic materials such as cadmium-telluride, it’s easy to recycle. One job posting for a senior scientist hints that multi-junction thin-film cells could be in the offing.

So what’s the connection to the oil sands? Chief executive Randy Goldstein and executive vice president Phil Rettger, both co-founders of OptiSolar, come from a previous venture in the Alberta oil patch.

The two Americans are co-inventors of a process for upgrading tar-like bitumen into high-quality synthetic crude oil, and in 1999 they founded Calgary, Alberta-based OPTI Canada to apply their technology to oil-sands projects. Goldstein, who declined a request for an interview, continues to serve on the OPTI Canada’s board.

“That team got pretty well connected in the Canadian business community,” said Rick Nathan, managing director of Kensington Capital Partners in Toronto. Last month, Kensington announced that one of its private-equity funds had invested $3 million in OptiSolar, but Nathan said that’s just what was disclosed. “We obviously like the company a lot. Most of the time you don’t want to talk about your investments.”

Toronto-based Gardiner Group Capital and Richardson Ventures of Winnipeg, Manitoba, also are past investors in OPTI Canada that are now heavily backing OptiSolar. Gardiner vice chairman Geoffrey Cumming is chairman of OptiSolar, while Richardson executive Robert Puchniak sits on both OptiSolar’s and OPTI Canada’s boards.

And industry insiders say it’s OptiSolar’s Canadian connection that has allowed the California greentech maverick to fly largely under the radar.