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Sunrgi Keeps Solar Cool

The Los Angeles-based company comes out of stealth mode with a solar-power system capable of concentrating sunlight beyond what normally would be the burning point. It plans to begin producing its concentrators, named Xtreme, in about a year.

Startup Sunrgi came out of stealth mode Tuesday with a claim that it can intensify sunlight by more than 1,600 times – or around twice as much as its competitors – and convert it into electricity at the same cost as electricity from fossil fuels.

Like other concentrating photovoltaic technologies, Sunrgi’s technology uses lenses to concentrate sunlight and direct it onto solar cells.

These systems have the advantage of using smaller cells,… Read More ›

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Funding Roundup: Solar, Transportation and Wind

Among other companies, Xunlight, Infinia, SolarOne and Hydrogen Engine Center closed deals in the last week. And the U.S. Department of Energy committed $243 million to greentech.

Green technology coninued to gain green over the past week, with a flurry of investments from venture capitalists as well as from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Starting in 2009, the DOE will begin dispensing $100 million to research centers to encourage scientific breakthroughs in a variety of areas such as energy storage, geological carbon sequestration and solar energy..

The DOE also announced three other new projects.

It will contribute $50… Read More ›

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Q&A: Bill Gross Puts a Shine on Solar

Idealab CEO Bill Gross, who helped concentrating solar-thermal company eSolar raise $130 million this week, says he doesn't think solar companies are overvalued.

While most of us were trying to navigate our way through the social and academic experiments of high school, Bill Gross spent his extracurricular time building Solar Devices, a firm that sold solar-power plans and kits.

Then, while studying mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, he patented a new loudspeaker design and formed yet another company called GNP Loudspeakers.

The powerhouse serial entrepreneur also founded… Read More ›

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Funding Roundup: Solar-Thermal Heats Up Despite Cool VC Climate

Solar-thermal developer eSolar snags $130 million while competitor Stirling Energy Systems gets $100 million, and the U.S. Department of Energy spends up to $86 million more for biofuel demonstration projects.

Venture-capital numbers released in the past week are sending mixed messages about whether greentech investment is shrinking or growing.

According to a Dow Jones VentureSource report released Saturday, overall venture-capital investment is down while clean technology fundings remain strong.

Venture-capital investment slipped 7 percent to $6.84 billion in the first quarter of 2008, compared with the same quarter last year, with deals falling to… Read More ›

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Solar Stocks Drop Despite Beating Street

Solar companies Evergreen Solar and SunPower both see shares drop after posting better-than-expected revenues.

Two solar companies, Evergreen Solar (NSDQ: ESLR) and SunPower Corp. (NSDQ: SPWR), saw their shares fall this week after better-than-expected first-quarter earnings failed to overshadow softer-than-expected guidance.

Evergreen Solar’s stock fell 11 percent Friday after the company posted a net loss of $25,000, or 0 cents per share, up from a loss of $6.2 million, or 9 cents per share, a year ago. It’s a drop from a profit of $788,000, or 1 cent… Read More ›

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Greentech Media's Top Ten Startups

The greentech market is moving ahead. These are the companies leading the way.

A123 Systems

A123 Systems continues to outperform the advanced storage market, helping it once again earn the top spot on our list of Top Ten Startups. Since we last checked in with A123, the company has solidified its place as the world’s leading producer of nanophosphate batteries, expanded its manufacturing base with a new production facility in China, and become a critical part of the evolving EV market.

The company’s fast-charging,… Read More ›

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Can Solar Power Make You Smarter?

Not really, but one nonprofit wants to use solar power to cut costs at schools and hospitals in low-income communities.

Burning Man, an annual August arts festival in the Nevada desert, is known for fire, nudity and the cult-like devotion of its participants.

This year, engineers and other volunteers from the Burning Man community are taking in the desert sun four months early to help build a solar-power system for a Nevada elementary school.

Black Rock Solar, a Burning Man-inspired nonprofit that helps provide low-income communities with solar electricity… Read More ›

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Trina Cancels $1B Silicon Plant … Is Shortage Ending?

Analysts say the news doesn't mean the shortage is over yet, but could be a sign that companies are reassessing how much capacity they need. One calls the news "a breath of fresh air" in an atmosphere where many players are double- or triple-dipping into capital markets, while others say it underscores the difficulty of making silicon.

Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) shares rose 15.7 percent Monday after the company said it has canceled plans to build a 10,000-ton silicon factory.

The company in December announced it was building the $1 billion plant, which it had planned to finish in 2012. That was after Trina saw its margins squeezed by the shortage of solar-grade silicon last year and after the company in October hired a vice president for polysilicon to help confront its problem… Read More ›

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LDK to Raise $400M

The Chinese solar-wafer company, which earlier this week said it would raise $300 million in convertible notes, has priced $400 million at a 25-percent premium from its closing share price Wednesday.

LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) on Thursday priced $400 million of convertible notes and said it expects to close the offering Tuesday.

The company last week said it needed $200 million to $300 million in capital and on Tuesday said it would issue $300 million in convertible notes to help build its silicon plant and expand its wafer production (see LDK Seeks Big-Time Capital and LDK Wants $300M).

LDK didn't immediately respond to calls asking why it had… Read More ›

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LDK Wants $300M

The Chinese solar giant will use money from convertible notes to support expansion plans and give investors first-quarter guidance.

Chinese solar-wafer manufacturer LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) said Tuesday it would issue $300 million in convertible notes to help build its silicon plant and expand its wafer production.

The announcement was not a surprise. Last week, Chief Financial Officer Jack Lai warned that LDK could fall $200 million to $300 million short of the capital it needs and analyst Jesse Pichel predicted that that the financing probably would come in the form of… Read More ›

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SEC Ends Investigation of LDK

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff doesn't intend to recommend enforcement action against LDK Solar, the company said in its annual report.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff doesn’t plan to recommend any enforcement action against LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK), according to the company’s annual report filed Monday.

LDK in October said the commission was inquiring into allegations from the company’s former financial controller, Charley Situ, that it had overstated its silicon inventories (see LDK Says SEC Is Inquiring Into Inventory Discrepancy Allegations).

An independent… Read More ›

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LDK Seeks Big-Time Capital

The Chinese solar-wafer manufacturer could be short $200 million to $300 million of what it needs to build its silicon plants and expand its wafer production, CFO Jack Lai said at Photon's Photovoltaic Technology Show in Munich, Germany.

Chinese solar-wafer manufacturer LDK Solar could be facing a shortfall of $200 million to $300 million of the capital it needs to finance its planned silicon plants and wafer-production expansion, Chief Financial Officer Jack Lai said at a trade show in Munich, Germany, this week.

LDK’s previously announced silicon plants include one with the capacity to produce 1,000 tons per year, expected to open this summer, and one with the capacity to… Read More ›

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Spain Considers Adding a Solar Gigawatt

According to a note from Piper Jaffray, Spain is considering boosting its cap on solar incentives to 2.26 gigawatts, from a previous cap of 400 megawatts and a previous proposal of 1.2 gigawatts. The news could be good for the industry, but bad for U.S. installers.

Spain could be considering raising the cap on its solar incentive to 2.26 gigawatts, up from a previous proposal of 1.2 gigawatts, according to a Piper Jaffray research note Thursday.

The note from Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel said the information came from a “leaked royal decree,” which also proposed a subsidy of 35 euro cents per kilowatt-hour, up from a previous proposal of 31 euro cents per kilowatt-hour. 

“If accurate, this proposal… Read More ›

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Thin-Film Solar Expands

Schuco, E.ON, China Stream Fund Solar Energy and XsunX push forward with their manufacturing-facility plans.

Schuco International and E.ON will build a $135 million factory to produce the world’s largest thin-film panels, the companies said Thursday.

The two Germany companies, which have formed a joint venture called Malibu, said they expect the manufacturing facility, to be built in Magdeburg, Germany, to start producing panels in the fall.

The announcement was part of a succession of thin-film production announcements Thursday.

China Stream Fund… Read More ›

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Solel Heats Up with $140M Solar Plant

The Israeli solar company says "¡sí!" to manufacturing solar-thermal equipment in Spain.

Israeli solar-thermal developer Solel said Wednesday it's forking out $140 million to build a manufacturing facility in southern Spain.

The plant will produce parts used in the construction of solar-thermal fields, including parabolic trough collectors. These curved mirrors are used to generate steam that in turn powers a turbine to produce electricity.

Solel, which develops and builds large solar fields, said the new plant would allow it to… Read More ›

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Battle for Home Solar Financing Begins

SolarCity signs a deal with Morgan Stanley that will cut homeowners' upfront solar-installation costs to about $2,000 and charge them a fixed monthly fee -- not a rate -- for solar power. It's the latest in a series of new programs trying to use a commercial financial model to grow the residential solar market.

SolarCity, which claims to be the largest residential solar installer in the United States, on Wednesday announced a new financing program that it said will cut homeowners’ upfront solar-installation costs from about $25,000 to about $2,000.

The SolarLease program, backed by Morgan Stanley, is not the first to tap into the idea of paying the upfront costs of solar-power installations in exchange for tax credits and an agreement that the… Read More ›

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Solar Roundup: Another Tax-Credit Proposal, Big Deals for Solar-Thermal and Thin-Film

As BrightSource signs the largest deal yet for solar-thermal and Nanosolar gets an additional $50 million and another customer, senators prepare yet another bill that would extend tax credits for renewables.

Two U.S. senators, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and John Ensign, R-Nev., are preparing to introduce a new renewable-energy tax-credit proposal within a week, Solar Energy Industries Association spokesperson Monique Hanis told Greentech Media on Tuesday. 

The bill would be a new take on a multiyear extension of tax credits set to expire at the end of this year (see Solar Sharpens Weapons for Incentive Battle and Solar Industry’s Five-Step Plan).

The… Read More ›

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Concentrating Solar to Reach 18 Gigawatts by 2020

A report by the Prometheus Institute and Greentech Media forecasts that concentrating solar-thermal and concentrating PV will make up 12 and 6 gigawatts of installed capacity, respectively, while standard flat-plate PV will make up the rest of a predicted 288-gigawatt market.

Companies will spend between $80 billion and $200 billion on concentrating-solar installations in the next 12 years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Prometheus Institute and Greentech Media.

That includes more than $30 billion worth of plants that companies have announced in just the last six months, according the report.

"While the conventional sources of energy will have increasing difficulty in simply maintaining prices and… Read More ›

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Solar Setback in San Francisco

A pilot program that would have heated San Francisco's solar market with $3 million in incentives -- and become the largest such program in the nation -- has been put on hold because of budget concerns. Sun Run president says uncertainty could make the city less attractive to solar companies.

San Francisco's solar incentive pilot program, expected to be the largest such municipal program in the country, has been put on hold.

Until this week, the program was slated to begin Monday. It would have set aside $3 million in rebates intended to bring 1.5 megawatts of solar installations to the city by offering between $3,000 and $4,000 for residential installations and up to $10,000 for commercial installations.

San Francisco Supervisor… Read More ›