Well, we won't know until tomorrow what the big news is, but we do know that Energy Secretary Steve Chu will be visiting Solyndra Friday morning to make a "major funding announcement," said a U.S. Department of Energy press release.
Vice President Joe Biden plans to take part in the event, but he will speak via satellite. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, never one to miss a good opportunity to talk about solar, plans to join Chu.
Solyndra already is set to get a lot of financial support from the federal government. In March this year, the DOE said the solar panel maker was due to receive a $535 million loan guarantee for building a factory near its current headquarters in Fremont, Calif.
Solyndra won't get the loan guarantee until it finalizes negotiations with the DOE over the terms of the contract, and the amount of the loan guarantee may end up being a different figure at the end of the negotiation.
The announcement tomorrow could deal with the loan guarantee. But that really wouldn't be a big deal (since we already knew about that funding) unless the DOE is going to significantly increase the size of the loan guarantee.
The company makes copper-indium-gallium-selenide solar panels. Unlike conventional solar panels, each of Solyndra's panels is made up of a row of tubes, a design the company said could better capture direct and reflected light.
The company, founded in 2005, began commercial production last summer with a 20-megawatt line, and has announced about $2 billion in contracts with customers in Europe and the United States.
Solyndra already has equipment to boost its annual production capacity to at least 200 megawatts, Solyndra's vice president of marketing and business development, told me a few months ago. But he declined to disclose production rates.
The company plans to use the federal loan guarantee to borrow money for a new factory that would eventually have the capacity to make 500 megawatts of solar panels per year.
If all goes well, Solyndra could start building the factory by the end of the year and start production there in early 2011.
