Solexant, a Silicon Valley solar thin film startup that once plotted to build its first commercial-scale factory in Oregon, has quietly raised a $30,000 round. Read More »
Cleantech
Solar thin film maker MiaSole is fighting for survival in a solar market that has seen many manufacturers shutter factories over the past year. The startup announced Wednesday that it’s raised $55 million to help it enter a new market and boost its sales staff. Read More »
Solar startup Alta Devices, backed by investors such as Kleiner and Dow Chemical, gives us a tour of its new pad in Silicon Valley where it’s setting up a pilot production line to make gallium-arsenide solar cells. Read More »
It’s been painfully apparent that many of the well-funded startups building next-gen solar tech have yet to ship solar panels in any large volumes and have missed their targets. And even the folks in the solar industry are starting to take each other to task. Read More »
Sometimes tech trends end up disrupting huge industries, like when the idea of Skype and free web calls, collided with the phone companies. However, sometimes tech ideas have all the makings of these kind of disruptions but ultimately end up flaming out. Here’s why: Read More »
Solar thin-film startup HelioVolt has lined up Korean conglomerate SK Group as an equity investor as it tries to scale up and move into mass production. SK announced Monday that it’s made an equity investment of $50 million in HelioVolt. Read More »
Silicon Valley solar thin-film startup, Stion, on Friday officially opened the door of its factory in Mississippi, marking a milestone for the company as it seeks to expand production quickly in an increasingly competitive market. Read More »
Solyndra just became a high-profile casualty of the youthful solar industry as Solyndra failed to compete successfully against larger solar rivals in a global market that depends heavily on government subsidies. Here’s what went wrong. Read More »
After getting a $535 million federal loan guarantee for building a factory, solar thin-film startup Solyndra is going out of business. Solyndra has also raised close to a billion dollars in equity and loans and said it will file Chapter 11. Read More »
What can you do when profits are hard to come by and your targeted market hasn’t taken off? For Ascent Solar Technologies, that means selling a stake of the company and licensing its technology to a Chinese conglomerate. Read More »
Intel is known for its ability to roll out chips speedily in giant factories. Can that knowledge help a solar startup? MiaSole announced Tuesday that it has enlisted the chip giant to help the company scale up its thin-film solar production. Read More »
Developers of copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) solar panels may be finally making that leap to mass production, but they have a lot of catching up to do to be competitive. An NREL expert and Morgan Stanley analyst outlines some of the technical and market challenges. Read More »