Ucilia Wang 07 01 09, 11:52 AM

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SPG Secures $13M for Solar Expansion

SPG Holdings out of Novato, Calif., has raised $13 million in equity from Global Environmental Fund and Robeco.

The money would enable SPG, whose businesses include SPG Solar and Thompson Technologies Industries, to expand its reach not just within the United States but internationally, the company said.

SPG Solar designs and installs solar energy systems while Thompson Technologies manufactures trackers and other equipment for mounting solar panels. One of its products, called "Floatovoltaics," enables solar panels to be installed over water.

SPG Solar serves the residential and commercial markets in California, Arizona and Oregon. One of its recent installations was a 132-kilowatt system using Solyndra's solar panels and racking systems. The system now sits atop of Livermore Cinema in northern California city of Livermore.

Solyndra's panels are made up of tubes rather than the flat solar cells that use copper, indium, gallium and selenium as the key materials for converting sunlight into electricity.

What makes Solyndra's solar panels attractive, however, are their designs and the simpler way to mount them, analysts said. The tubes, placed with space in between them, help to reduce the panels' wind resistance. As a result, Solyndra has designed its own mounting system that doesn't require the usual anchoring you see in supporting conventional, flat panels.