Solar

SatCon Technology Corporation (SATC) nounced the launch of its new 500kW grid connected PowerGate(TM) Photovoltaics inverter with recent orders for the North American market. The 500kW unit rounds out SatCon's family of solar array inverters, including designs for 50kW, 100kW, 225kW and 500kW three-phase applications, and designs for 15 - 30kW single-phase applications. SatCon's products provide a more cost effective alternative for solar integrators by eliminating many of the independent components and field wiring required by other designs. SatCon's photovoltaic inverters include all of the necessary equipment to convert solar array DC power to useable AC power and also...

Shares of Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (STP) started trading yesterday and the stock closed with a 34% gain on the day. Suntech is a solar PV manufacture based in China's Jiangsu Province. They plan on using this cash infusion to expand manufacturing capacity and to research ways of lowering the cost of producing silicon solar cells. This stock is one way to purchase shares in two hot areas right now (Solar and China.) I'm not able to purchase shares in this company yet for the mutual fund since Marketocracy doesn't list this company yet. I'm currently...

For the next two days I will be at the Solar Power 2005 conference in Washington DC. I'm currently deep in the bowls of the Hyatt and I'm finding that wireless internet (and also cell phone) coverage is spotty at best. I just finished the first session and will be posting conference notes later when I have a strong internet connection. It looks like there is about 300 people in attendance and the first session on Introduction to Solar was informative. If you happen to be reading this and you are attending the session, say Hello, It would...

Colorado House Speaker Lola Spradley, R-Beulah. and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, co-chairs of Amendment 37—the Renewable Energy Initiative—kicked-off their statewide campaign Thursday with stops throughout Colorado. Amendment 37 would require 10 percent of Colorado's electricity be generated from renewable energy by 2015. The program is scaled beginning with a 3 percent requirement by 2007, 6 percent by 2011, and 10 percent by 2015.

Right on the heels of Colorado passing Amendment 37, Pennsylvania is waiting for State House approval on the passage of their own legislation mandating clean energy production. This new bill states that by 2020, utilities would be required to provide 18 percent of the electricity used in Pennsylvania from alternative sources, like wind, solar and waste coal. Wind should be the big winner for this region.

Evergreen Solar Inc (ESLR) announced the filing of a registration statement on Form S-3 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. After the registration statement is declared effective by the SEC, the Company will be able to offer and sell up to an aggregate of $75 million of its common stock, preferred stock, depositary shares, warrants and debt securities from time to time in one or more public offerings. The terms of any such future offerings will be established at the time of such offerings.

Last week on Thursday and Friday I attended the Solar Power 2005 conference. My primary goals were to try and talk with some of the public companies that I follow in this sector and also to try and gain a better understanding about the industry. I understand the fundamentals of solar technology, but I was looking to get a better understanding of the industry itself and not just the technology. This conference (like many other industry specific conferences) was geared towards people that are already in the industry. So being at an industry conference like this and talking...

Altair Nanomaterials (ALTI) has been designated to receive an additional $2.5 million in Federal grant funding during 2006-2007 for the continued development of nanotechnology, nanosensors, and nanomaterials research, development and deployment. The $2.5 million funding was included in the Congressional Energy and Water Development Appropriation for Fiscal Year 2006, which was passed by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on November 8, 2005. We anticipate the appropriation will be signed by the President within the next week. ALTI had a nice 10% jump in the price yesterday on this news.

Tom Konrad CFA The falling price of photovoltaic (PV) solar is undermining the case for Concentrated Solar Thermal Power (CSP).  According to a recent report from Pike Research, of the 6886 MW of CSP projects awarded in the United States since 2004, 36% have been replaced with PV.  That's more than the number which are actually under construction (1,532 MW, or 21% of announced projects), and all of those required the backing of the US DOE loan guarantee program. With this recent track record, and no ...

Charles Morand Tom and I recently received complimentary copies of a new book called "Investment Opportunities for a Low Carbon World", edited FTSE Group's Director of Responsible Investment Will Oulton*.  The book is a compendium of articles by 31 different authors broken down into three main categories: (1) environmental and low-carbon technologies; (2) investment approaches, products and markets; and (3) regulation, incentives, investor and company case studies. While Tom will provide a comprehensive review of the book once he's finished reading it in its entirety, I will instead review a few selected chapters over...

XSUNX Inc. (XSNX) announced that it has expanded its business opportunities to include the product development of a new opaque solar cell device. This unique four-terminal solar cell design uses a combination of thin film transparent cell technology, derived from the company's Power Glass initiative, with that of a nano-crystalline solar cell. XsunX believes that the combination of these two technologies into a single device holds a promising opportunity to deliver low cost, high efficiency, flexible, and light weight solar cells providing performance characteristics commonly found only in various forms of expensive crystalline wafer technologies. The decision to...

Privately held Konarka Technologies, Inc. announced it has acquired Siemens AG's organic photovoltaic research activities. The acquisition brings together two leading efforts to develop and commercialize a new generation of photovoltaics that are inexpensive, easy-to-manufacture and versatile. These new plastic power cells will make it possible for any electronic device or structure to carry its own on-board source of renewable energy.

Garvin Jabusch The hysterics around recent solar industry announcements that in general profit margins are narrowing are, as usual with all things solar recently, completely overblown. "Is This A Death Spiral for Solar Companies?" might be my favorite histrionic headline. Artist's depiction of death spiral in binary star system J0806 with two white dwarfs destined to merge.  Image Source: NASA/Tod Strohmayer (GSFC)/Dana Berry (Chandra X-Ray Observatory)   Yes, narrowing margins are making life difficult for smaller, higher cost producers. But this is and has always been a standard part of the evolution...

Spire Corp (SPIR) announced that it has entered into a contract to provide Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (HHI), of Ulsan, Korea, a multi-megawatt turnkey photovoltaic (PV) module assembly line. The line is scheduled to be delivered during the Spring of 2005. Spire's advanced PV module manufacturing equipment and process technology will enable HHI to manufacture state-of-the-art PV modules from solar cells to address the growing Korean and Asian solar PV market.

SatCon Technology Corporation (SATC) announced that it has successfully launched its 500kW PowerGate(TM) inverter. The release of the PowerGate(TM) 500kW inverter was one of SatCon's major R&D milestones for 2006, and positions SatCon as the leading provider of high efficiency inverters for the rapidly growing solar markets. The 500kW AE-500-60-PV-A utility-grade PV inverter was successfully listed to the UL 1741 Standard and also received approval from the California Energy Commission (CEC). The acceptance of this inverter by the various agencies not only gives SatCon the largest commercial PV inverter in North America, it also gives SatCon the...