Sanyo Opens Factories in Oregon, Mexico

Sanyo celebrated the opening of two factories this week: a silicon ingot and wafer in Salem, Ore., and a panel assembly plant in Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

The silicon ingot/wafer factory has begun production and is set to reach its full production capacity of 70 megawatts per year by April next year, the company said.

Sanyo will use the monocrystalline silicon from the factory to produce its HIT solar panels, which wraps amorphous silicon around monocrystalline silicon.

Monocrystalline silicon already is more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than multicrystalline silicon, though it's also more expensive. Sanyo further boosts a HIT panel's performance by adding amorphous silicon.

The new assembly plant in Mexico will put together the HIT panels. The plant has the capacity to produce 50 megawatts of solar panels per year, the company said. It's the only Sanyo solar panel assembly plant outside of Japan.

Sanyo had 260 megawatts of cell manufacturing capacity before it completed the two factories. The company hopes to boost that figure to 600 megawatts by the end of March 2011. 

The company is also teaming up with Nippon Oil to make solar panels that would use a layer of amorphous silicon and a layer of microcrystalline silicon.  

Climate Change Bill Inches Closer to Passage, Maybe

A controversial U.S. Senate climate change bill passed the Environment and Public Works Committee Thursday. But it's likely to have a long way to go toward the final passage by the full Senate.

Of course, it's not a surprise that there would be lots of political wrangling over a bill that aims to cut emissions by requiring businesses to pay for some of the pollution they generate. It also contains provisions to support nuclear power, another touchy subject

The bill, sponsored by Sens. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, passed the committee without any Republican support. Republicans demanded more fiscal analysis of the bill, and Boxer, who chairs the committee, said no.

Boxer didn't need the Republicans' votes to move the bill out of the committee – she only needed a simple majority to pass the legislation.

One of the Democrats also voted no. Sen. Max Baucus said the goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020 was overly ambitious.

Baucus chairs the Finance Committee, which will soon take its turn to shape the bill. He wants 17 percent instead, but would include language that would push the goal to 20 percent if other countries also agree to cut emissions.

The House passed its climate change bill in June. The bill sets a 17 percent goal for cutting emissions. It also includes a mandate that 20 percent of the country's electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020.

Global Solar Gets New CEO

Global Solar Energy announced that Jeffrey Britts has been appointed its new CEO. He is replacing the retiring Michael Gering.

Gering, 73, will remain on the board of directors and serve as chairman, the Tucson company said Thursday.

Global Solar develops copper-indium-gallium-diselenide thin films, and has increasingly focused its resources on marketing its products to building material makers.

The flexible CIGS thin films will be embedded in roof shingles by Dow Chemical, which plans to launch the product next year.

The building material market is new for solar energy equipment manufacturers. Most of the solar panels on the market today are installed on top of the roof or on the ground.

Integrating solar cells into building materials presents technical challenges. Skeptics also question whether those materials would be affordable for the masses or become niche products.

Britts has been Global Solar's chief technology officer since 2005 and will keep that post, the company said. Britts joined the company in 1998.

Global Solar has a 40-megawatt factory in Tucson and a 35-megawatt factory in Germany. 

Walmart to Outfit New, Renovated Stores With LEDs. 650 Stores in First Year

Walmart, the mega-retailer that helped put energy consumption on the agenda for corporate executives, said it will use light emitting diode lights from Cree in new stores and retrofitted ones. In the first year, that will come to 650 stores alone.

The stores will replace ceramic metal halide lights, those honkers you see in the ceiling of big box retailers. The Cree bulbs will emit the same amount of light as a 70-watt bulb but use 82 percent less power.

LEDs have been talked about for years, but are finally going to start appearing in large numbers. Commercial establishments will install them first. The bulbs cut power, and commercial establishments typically have more bulbs, but the bulbs also cut maintenance. LED bulbs last 50,000 hours, far longer  than vacuum-tube bulbs. That leads to fewer hours the maintenance people have to climb ladders to replace bulbs, order new bulbs, figure out places to stock the ones that just came in the mail, etc.

LEDs will come to the consumer market, but more slowly. Most people, after all, just change their own bulbs so the cost associated with swapping them is minimal.

The quality of light has also improved with LED bulbs – that "alien autopsy" tone of white is vanishing – and the price is coming down. Need more on lighting? Here's a comprehensive report on the subject that, just by coincidence, I wrote.

In the middle of the decade Walmart started looking at its energy bills and determined that it could whack a lot of operating costs through efficiency. Lighting was an early target. By taking out the light bulbs in the coke machines on the premises, the company saved $1 million a year.

LEDs represent the biggest opportunity in lighting. The second biggest (or first, according to some) will be equipment to network lights so they can be automatically dimmed or turned off.

How Is Obama Doing With Climate Legislation?

So much for sick-outs.

The Environment and Public Works Committee of the U.S. Senate approved the Kerry-Boxer Bill by a vote to 11-1. Max Baucus, D-Mont., voted against it because he wants to see greenhouse gases capped at 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020. The bill calls for a 20 percent reductions. The Republicans on the committee stayed home.

Other committees, however, want to vote on the bill so the full Senate may not vote on a bill until next year. That means President Obama will have to go to Copenhagen without a signed piece of legislation.

While that might be seen as a setback, the push on carbon legislation has been pretty interesting. Right after the inauguration, we talked to various policy makers and venture capitalists. Some said the complexities and conflicting interests meant that a carbon bill wouldn't become law until a second term. Washington analyst KC Mares said that the President might have to make the benefits more regional – i.e. let Michigan and industrial states keep more of the money from any cap and trade system – to make any bill politically palatable. Steve McBee, another Washington consultant, predicted that carbon legislation wouldn't pass this year but might make it before the 2010 elections.

The Kerry-Boxer bill and the companion Waxman-Markey aren't enacted yet, and they will face opposition, but overall progress seems to be on track.

Coulomb In Your Garage

SAN FRANCISCO -- Coulomb Technologies plans to launch a residential electric car charging device next year that is likely to cost between $500 and $1,000, said Praveen Mandal, president of Coulomb, at Greentech Media's The Networked Grid conference in San Francisco Wednesday.

The Campbell, Calif.-based company currently sells charging equipment to businesses and utilities in North American and Europe and runs a subscription service for users to access these charging spots.

Getting into the home charging market is a logical next step, particularly given that major automakers such General Motors, Toyota and Nissan plan to start selling plug-in hybrid or all-electric cars in 2010.

Consumers could end up buying the chargers from car dealerships or even utilities, he added. The company hasn't finalized all the sales channels for the product launch, Mandal said.

Back in September, Coulomb said it had snagged a deal to sell its charging equipment at the smart USA dealers, which will be selling Daimler's smart fortwo electric cars.

Coulomb plans to sell the device somewhere between $500 and $1,000, depending on the options consumers choose, Mandal said. The device the company sells in the commercial market is around $2,500. 

Some of the options would allow users to decide how they want to schedule charging and check on electricity rates. A more sophisticated service would allow cars (with the proper equipment/software) to communicate with the charging device, for example. 

Consumers would be able to schedule charging over the Internet and get a text message if charging didn't start as planned, Mandal said. The device also could be connected to Coulomb's service center, which would be able to detect equipment failure and send a technician to fix it. 

You will need an electrician to install the device at home.