Today is the last day of exhibits at Solar Power International, the United States’ largest solar show, and as mentioned previously, the place is bustling and the mood is cautiously optimistic. Here's one reason for that optimism – Suntech’s Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) business is worth more than $100 million. BIPV  was not really a category a few years ago. Today Suntech is doing big business in this emerging solar sector along with smaller firms like Lumeta and Open Energy. BIPV has been a notoriously difficult product to sell. Most people understand the value in BIPV but establishing a sales channel has proven daunting. Now Suntech and others seem to have it figured out. Rather than work with traditional PV panel installers, the BIPV manufacturers are “bringing product in through hundreds of residential roofing contractors,� said Leonard May, the Managing director of BIPV products at Suntech. “We make a solar panel for the people in the roofing business.� Suntech’s BIPV products fall into the following categories:

• Residential – Suntech’s “Just Roofâ€? product actually helps form the residential roof. The company’s residential roof tile forms the skin of the roof with the help of Eagle Roofing, the nations largest concrete roofing tile supplier.

• Commercial Flat-Roof BIPV.

• Architectural – PV for the sides of buildings, skylights, and overhead glazing. According to May of Suntech, architectural applications are “the most difficult sales channelâ€? with a “much longer sales cycle and customers resistant to standardization.â€?

Open Energy, another player in BIPV, is a bulletin-board traded stock funded by The Quercus Trust. According to CFO Aidan Shields, Open Energy (like Suntech) is working with Eagle Roofing. The company has a market cap between $12 to $14 million and expects 2009 to be a good year. Not bad for a sector that didn’t really exist until a few years ago.