The Solar Gold Rush  

Alternet is asking "With new solar-powered movie theaters and factories, the solar industry is exploding. But how far can it take us toward a clean energy future ?" - A Solar Gold Rush Is Spreading From California to New Jersey.

Solar power is exploding in America, particularly in California. San Luis Obispo's Palm Theatre and Berkeley's Shotgun Players are now the first solar-powered theaters in the country; FedEx's distribution center in Fontana has a solar system covering 20,834 square feet; and Google's Mountain View campus boasts America's largest corporate solar installation. True to its pioneering spirit, California is leading the way -- but that's not to say other states aren't tagging quickly behind.

"California has a comprehensive approach to solar. We have an aggressive, proactive environment that allows legislators to go ahead and do things -- the mentality is definitely here," says Andrew McAllister, director of programs at the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE), a nonprofit dedicated to facilitating clean energy technologies and practices. McAllister muses that the state's energy crisis several years ago, when deregulation led to unpredictable electricity prices, goaded California into collective action. "Worldwide, solar is still driven by policy more than any other factor, and what makes California attractive is its political commitment to taking the lead."

In America, most of the policies that affect the solar industry are created at the state level. California, which is now poised to become the world's second-fastest-growing solar market behind Germany, has a long pioneering history, which has fueled the solar industry as much as the state's abundant sunshine.

As proof, in 2005, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved $300 million for statewide solar rebates, tripling the original sum in order to bolster the market; since its Million Solar Roofs program kicked off in 2006, California has installed more solar panels than in the previous 10 years combined; and in 2007, the state approved the California Solar Initiative, the country's largest solar energy policy to date, offering homeowners a rebate on top of the federal tax credit and plans to provide $2.8 billion toward solar incentives over the next decade. ...

But other states are giving California a run for its money in an increasingly competitive solar market. Take Oregon, which has been proactive in welcoming renewable energy business thanks to the state's Business Energy Tax Credit (nicknamed "Betsy"), which covers 50 percent of all project costs -- the country's largest solar incentive. In August, Oregon's Department of Transportation announced plans to build a solar panel installation along a stretch of interstate, the first such project in the nation; in October, Germany's SolarWorld opened the largest solar factory in the Americas in Hillsboro; and in the same month, Sanyo began building its $80 million, 70-megawatt solar manufacturing facility in Salem.

Oregon isn't alone. There's New Mexico, with an abundance of arid land and sunlight, offering the perfect platform for large-scale solar thermal installation projects. New Mexico recently welcomed a project from Germany's Schott Solar, one of the world's leading solar companies, which has invested $100 million to build a solar equipment manufacturing plant outside Albuquerque. And Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey (which, according to solar energy research company Solarbuzz, is emerging as America's next solar-friendly state) are all heavily recruiting solar manufacturers, not to mention creating attractive incentives.

HelioVolt Corporation has opened its first factory for manufacturing thin-film solar energy products. The 122,400 square-foot facility in Austin, Texas is expected to create approximately 160 new jobs and will have an initial capacity of 20 megawatts.

This factory is the first commercial implementation of HelioVolt’s FASST reactive transfer printing process for solar thin film production. FASST is designed to bring solar energy to grid-parity by combining lower cost thin film materials with superior manufacturing efficiencies and high quality end products, the company said.

FASST delivers copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells that exceeded 12 percent conversion efficiency in a record setting six minutes during independent testing. HelioVolt is using FASST to develop both conventional modules and next-generation building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products for the global solar energy market.

While glass itself may have become a commodity, driven by its industrial legacy and focused PV research at its area universities, a little-known 21st-century transformation of the region's glass-making tradition is underway that could change all that. Toledo, known as "The Glass City," neighboring Perrysburg, and the surrounding Wood County have together become a mecca for start-up manufacturers of thin-film PV, primarily delivered in a glass panel sandwich.

"I think the regional determinant is the ongoing collective legacy of the physical infrastructure and the human capital of making glass and glass products," says Tom Blaha, executive director of Wood County Economic Development Commission, an organization that has played a key role in identifying industrial sites and tax abatement structures for the startups.

McMaster began the current transformation of the region in 1985 when he founded Glasstech, an ASi (amorphous silicon) solar technology firm. From there McMaster started CdTe (cadmium telluride) company Solar Cells Inc. (SCI) in a technology incubator at the University of Toledo.

Out of Solar Cells Inc. came First Solar Inc., Solar Fields, which Q-Cells AG, the German-owned number-one global manufacturer of PV cells and thin-film modules, bought in 2007 and merged with Calyxo, and Willard & Kelsey Solar Group LLC.

Xunlight Corp., led by a researcher from the University of Toledo, also plans to begin production of flexible solar panels this year at a factory in Toledo. Some industry experts say SCI's technology had some strong points, but was maybe not quite as effective as some of the processes developed later on.

As CEO of Solar Fields and vice chairman of Calyxo, Norm Johnston has been integrally involved in the 21st-century transformation of the region's glass-making tradition. "[McMaster] ran out of money, invited [Walmart billionaire John] Walton in, and got diluted out of what became First Solar," he recounts. First Solar, the world's 800-pound gorilla of thin-film manufacture, has its sole North American plant located in Cedar Business Park in Perrysburg Township.

Johnston says, "McMaster then came to me, asking if I knew how to do [what First Solar was doing], so I got 6 people with 150 years experience. Where but in Toledo could you find that?" he says, of the founding of Solar Fields, whose technology is being used by Calyxo.

"Calyxo is in start-up to do CdTe on glass panels," Johnston said of his new firm. "The thin film stack is the same as First Solar, but the process is different, it's atmospheric, not vacuum, and continuous, not batch. Without the need for a vacuum chamber, the size of panels can be larger, so we have fewer legs, wires, less hookup time and potentially lower installation costs." He says that once Calyxo has established volume manufacturing, its production costs should be at least as good as First Solar's, which are reported to be the lowest in the world. Calyxo's Perrysburg site contains the original prototype line and R&D center, says Johnston, though initial production will be in Germany, near Q-Cells, and will be cut and pasted all over the world where appropriate.

Largely unknown outside the region, Willard & Kelsey Solar Group LLC is constructing its manufacturing facility for CdTe thin-film glass panels in an old Delafoil cathode ray tube components factory in Perrysburg. The local newspaper reports that W&K intends to produce 1 to 1.5 million panels per year, but general manager Keith Guenther would not confirm exact production targets, saying only that the firm was "fundamentally on schedule."

Another source close to Willard & Kelsey's ramp-up says it has all of the "big pieces" of its equipment in place. "They're just testing the vacuums, and temperatures. They'll start making cadmium plates as soon as they get the rest of the equipment," he said.

Xunlight, whose AsiGe (Amorphous Silicon Germanium) technology also originated at the University of Toledo, is the exception to using glass panels, opting instead for a lighter stainless steel flexible substrate that can be integrated into commercial buildings. "We have completed our pilot line, and we're optimizing and ramping production. We should have small-scale commercial production in early '09," says Todd Armstrong, assistant to CEO and founder Xunming Deng.