SAN FRANCISCO -- Skyline Solar is trying to live without factories.

The company, which has created a system that combines silicon solar cells with a concentrator, gets its solar cells from five different suppliers, said Tim Keating, vice president of marketing and operations of the company during a meeting at Intersolar taking place this week in San Francisco. It then hires contract manufacturers to produce its modules.

And the concentrator? "We build them on auto body lines. There is a lot of spare capacity for stamping metal out there," he said.

Whether or PV systems should have concentrators installed on them remains one of the big debates in the industry. VCs plunked millions into concentrators back in 2005 and 2006 because demand for silicon skyrocketed. After raw materials fell, people began to question whether concentrators would ever pay off. To get around this problem, of course, startups are trying to devise concentrators out of cheaper and cheaper materials. Cool Earth Solar has concentrators made from 8-foot diameter Mylar balloons. (The balloons require a pumping system to keep them full of air, which adds costs, but you get the idea.)

Stamped, reflective metal surfaces will be cheaper than mirrors, argues Keating.

Another really interesting thing about the design: Skyline mounts its solar modules onto the tracking system horizontally, rather than vertically. It also positions the aluminum heat sink on the back of the module so that the metal fins run vertically, rather than horizontally. This allows the heat sink to passively dissipate heat.

And if Skyline's concept gets popular, you could start to see more panels that are Ford tough.

Keating, by the way, spent several years at Intel, making him one of the many of the former Blue Shirts entering the industry.