Markus Beck, the former head of First Solar’s now shuttered next-gen solar tech project, is looking to keep his dream alive and develop a new process to make thin film solar panels. Given the state of the market, it could be a tough play. Read More »
Cleantech
If you follow solar news, chances are you’ve heard of Dow’s solar shingles — a more aesthetic way to put panels on rooftops. Well, according to the founder and CEO of thin film solar startup NuvoSun, Dave Pearce, NuvoSun is the latest producer of Dow’s solar… Read More »
First Solar has broken its own record. The company announced Tuesday that it’s able to produce a thin-film solar panel that can convert 14.4 percent of the sunlight that hits it into electricity. The new record exceeds the 13.4 percent it achieved last year. Read More »
Thin film solar startup SoloPower continues to fund-raise, amid a difficult market for next-gen solar manufacturers. According to a filing, SoloPower has just raised $20 million in debt and options that will help provide fuel for the company’s factory to mass-produce its solar panels. Read More »
When PayPal went public in 2002, then executive vice president Reid Hoffman, spent some of his winnings on investing in an early round of Silicon Valley’s first solar thin film startup Nanosolar. Will the investment ever pay off? 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 »
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 »
SoloPower, which has gotten a federal loan guarantee offer to build a solar panel factory in Oregon, is now aiming for a close to $44 million equity round and has so far lined up about $15 million, according to a filing Wednesday. Read More »
While many of the next-gen thin film solar companies are in a make-or-break stage of ramping up to high volume production, a good deal of these companies don’t seem to have much trouble finding customers. Nanosolar says its scored a 1 GW deal with European utilities. Read More »
2011 will be a make or break year for many of the next-generation of thin film solar startups that are using the material copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) to make solar cells. Close to a dozen companies are aiming to either ramp up, or move into, production. Read More »
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