As with most electronics, solar panels lose efficiency when the temperature increases — and that’s particularly problematic considering the panels are usually installed where they can catch the most sun. SunModular, a young solar-component startup, hopes to help solve that problem with a technology that keeps traditional crystalline panels cool.

The company expects to close its first round of venture capital funding in the next four to six weeks, CEO Eugenia Corrales said Tuesday. Speaking after an SDForum panel in San Francisco on solar innovation, Corrales told us that SunModular has signed term sheets for $2.5 million of Series A funding.

While she didn’t name the startup’s potential backers, Puette Capital Management CEO Robert Puette is listed as a member of SunModular’s board of directors, along with SunModular co-founder Ana Corrales, a vice president of operations at Cisco Systems, and Eugenia Corrales, who also previously worked at Cisco Systems as a vice president of product operations, before serving as vice president of engineering at concentrating-photovoltaic company SolFocus.

Founded in 2007, SunModular is developing a passive-thermal technology that it claims can improve the efficiency of all silicon-based panels — and increase their reliability — by lowering their temperatures. The so-called balance of system — or non-panel — part of a solar-power system is an area ripe for innovation, as some 20 percent of the electricity produced by solar cells today is lost in the system. “And that’s on a good day; it can be significantly higher,” Eugenia Corrales said.

While she wouldn’t disclose more technical details, Corrales said SunModular’s technology can boost a system’s electricity output by 5 percent to 10 percent, at a cost of less than 1 percent of the total system cost. The company will likely initially target new systems when it launches its first product next year, although the technology could also be applied to existing systems at a higher cost (because the panels would have to be taken down and put back up again), she said. The company plans to make use of extra capacity at existing automotive-supply factories to keep its manufacturing expenses low, she added.

Still, SunModular’s technology will increase the upfront cost of new solar projects, which could spell a financing challenge for would-be customers in today’s tough economic times. Corrales said she is encouraged by a shift in industry focus from the “cost per watt,” a metric which only takes into account the peak capacity of a system, to the “levelized cost of electricity,” which spreads out all the costs over the total amount of electricity a system produces. Particularly in countries with feed-in tariffs that pay a lucrative price for the electricity produced, such as in Germany, systems that produce more electricity for a lower cost can pay off.

Overall, system efficiency is going to become increasingly important as industry margins shrink, Steve Horne, chief technical officer of SolFocus, said at the SDForum event. Already, an oversupply of panels has pushed solar prices down. As margins fall still lower and companies work to reduce costs per kilowatt-hour to stay competitive, system efficiencies — such as those that SunModular hopes to enhance — will likely play a larger role.

About: Demeter Partners, an AMF-accredited independent asset management company, manages funds investing capital in SMEs in the eco-industries sector (water, waste, polluted sites) and in the eco-energies sector (renewable energies, energy efficiency, environmentally-friendly buildings). Founded in Paris in June 2005, Demeter Partners is a pioneer in France in the Cleantechs’ field. The first FCPR Demeter fund manages assets of €105 million invested entirely in 22 companies. The FCPR Demeter 2 fund is targeting €200 million. Demeter Partners has offices in Paris, Madrid and Berlin.

www.demeter-partners.com

Key Personnel:
Olivier Dupont, Chairman of the Board
Partner: Stéphane Villecroze, Sophie Paturle, Michel Ronc, Lionel Cormier

Portfolio:
IGIP, SolFocus, Burgeap, Le Floch Group, Solaire Direct, 3S Soluciones y Sistemas Solares, TREZ, Panosol, JMB Energie, Sulfurcell, FCT (subsidiary companies Controlab and Testwell), Ambene, Eurener, Ternois, Ventilation Industrielle de Bretagne, Green Gas, IES Synergy, Aerowatt, Vergnet Groupe, Paprec Group, Methaneo, Caléa, Artesys

News: On 24 July, 2009, Demeter Partners, a Paris-based European private equity firm, announced the intermediate closing of Demeter 2 at €182M. Demeter Partners is dedicated to expansion capital operations, but to early stage operations and majority acquisitions as well, in eco-energies and eco-industries in France and other European countries. The fund was launched on November 18th 2008 with a target size of €200 million and a 1st closing at €125 million. Demeter 2 is the successor fund to Demeter, a fund of €105 million fully invested as of today. Investors in Demeter 2 include 2 sponsors (CDC Entreprises, IFP Investissements), about ten faithful investors already present in the 1st Demeter Fund (the main are Robeco, Cardif, CIC, CNP Assurances), but new investors as well: Total, Crédit Coopératif, Dahlia, European Investment Fund (EIF), GDF Suez, Pictor (a fund in which members of the Halley Family are invested) and Neotec (Spanish Fund of Fund).

On 9 July 2009, Demeter Partners carried out the 3rd investment of Demeter 2 by bringing 7 million dollars to SolFocus Inc., based in California, on the occasion of Series C funding amounting to $77.6 million. This round table was led by Apex Venture Partners, a management company based in Chicago. Follow-on participants in the round included New Enterprise Associates (NEA) who led the A and B Rounds for the company, NGEN Partners and Yellowstone Capital. New investors in the round include Demeter Partners, affiliates of Advanced Equities, and others.

SolFocus is one of those startups (you’ve got ‘em in every sector) that likes to detail every little bit of funding it raises with press releases. So here’s the latest tally from the company that builds solar power plants that concentrate the sun’s rays onto photovoltaic panels: It’s closed its Series C round at $77.6 million, having added on about $30 million since it first announced the round back in January. That brings the company’s total funds raised to over $170 million.

SolFocus’ latest funds put it in the select group of solar firms — along with companies like Solyndra, SoloPower and Nanosolar — that are amassing hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists. And it doesn’t seem like venture capitalists are getting sick of stuffing money into solar just yet. According to some of the data for the second-quarter cleantech venture capital numbers, solar was still the most capitalized sector, with more than $333.4 million (other research firms put solar investments closer to $114 million).

SolFocus is different from a lot of those other well-funded solar firms, however, in that it’s using a kind of hybrid solar technology called concentrating photovoltaics (CPV), which uses mirrors and lenses to concentrate sunlight onto tiny, highly efficient solar cells. As Greenwire explained recently, CPV merges two forms of more traditional solar technologies: concentrating mirrors and photovoltaics. For CPV, smaller cells mean the solar project can cut down on the expensive silicon-based solar panels, and the CPV systems usually deliver considerably more power than a solar panel on a rooftop (here’s over a dozen companies working on CPV).

SolFocus is moving faster than many of its competitors. It’s raising this latest cash to “transition from pilot production to full scale commercialization” and plans to expand its manufacturing from 0.5 MW shipped in 2008 to more than 10 MW shipped this year and to more than 50 MW in 2011. This latest round was led by Apex Venture Partners and included New Enterprise Associates, NGEN and Yellowstone Ventures and Demeter Partners.

Solar firms dominated cleantech investments in 2008 — will the sector continue its stranglehold on VC dollars in 2009? Well, solar funding is off to a promising start. On Friday SolFocus, which builds solar power plants that concentrate the sun’s rays onto photovoltaics, will announce it has raised $47.5 million in the first tranche of a series C round. The company had reportedly been looking to raise closer to $60 million to $80 million for this round, and SolFocus confirmed with us that the entire round will likely be closer to $60 million to $70 million, with the second tranche of funding likely closed later this month.

The large round was led by Apex Venture Partners and also included New Enterprise Associates and NGEN Partners, and SolFocus says the funds will be spent on boosting manufacturing from a half a megawatt in 2008 to 100MW by the end of 2010. Yes, they will need a lot of money for that. The company has already raised $95 million, so this will bring the company to a very sizable $143 million.

In addition to the funding, SolFocus said Mark Crowley, who has acted as SolFocus’ president since August of 2008, will take over as the company’s CEO. SolFocus former CEO Gary D. Conley will remain as the company’s chairman and founder, positions he presently holds. It’s not uncommon for a company to bring on a new CEO as the company moves into larger scale production and commercialization.

When it comes to concentrating photovoltaics (CPV), SolFocus is one of the leaders. The technology uses mirrors and lenses to concentrate sunlight onto tiny, highly-efficient solar cells. Smaller cells means the solar project can cut down on the expensive silicon-based solar panel. The systems usually deliver considerably more power than a solar panel on a rooftop but not as much as the massive solar thermal plants that are being built in the deserts.

While there are dozens of CPV players emerging (here are 13 of them) SolFocus is moving faster into commercialization than most. In November the company, which has a European headquarters in Madrid, Spain, announced that it signed a $103 million (€80M) agreement with EMPE Solar to install more than 10 megawatts (MW) of its concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology — enough power for 40,000 residents — in Southern Spain. SolFocus says this will be the largest CPV deployment in the world. The company also completed its portion of a 3 MW CPV installation owned by Spain’s Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (ISFOC).

When SolFocus execs aren’t hobnobbing with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, it looks like they’ve been hard at work signing deals in Europe. On Monday morning the startup announced that it has signed a $103 million (€80M) agreement with EMPE Solar to install more than 10 megawatts (MW) of its concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology — enough power for 40,000 residents — in Southern Spain. SolFocus says this will be the largest CPV deployment in the world.

While we don’t know much about EMPE Solar, Spain has been one of the leaders in solar installments due to its aggressive subsidy program. SolFocus’ European headquarters are in Madrid, Spain and the company already completed its portion of a 3 MW CPV installation owned by Spain’s Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (ISFOC).

The idea behind CPV, which uses mirrors and lenses to concentrate sunlight onto tiny, highly efficient solar cells, is to cut back on one of the most expensive parts of traditional photovoltaic systems, the silicon-based solar panel, and deliver the middle range of solar power needed for commercial installations. CPV projects normally provide more power output than a solar panel on a residential rooftop, but less than a large, utility-scale solar-thermal project in the desert. (See our list of 13 CPV startups here).

SolFocus is one of the more well-funded startups in the space, and it raised $95 million from New Enterprise Associates, Moser Baer India, David Gelbaum, Metasystem Group, NGEN Partners and Yellowstone Capital. The company is reportedly looking to add between $60 million and $80 million in a Series C round.

UPDATED: Politicians are lining up to appear alongside renewable energy projects these days — yesterday it was Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and earlier this month it was California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This morning it’s Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who plans to officially turn on three solar arrays created by solar startup SolFocus that will partly power the transmission tower for local radio station KGO Radio in San Francisco.

Update: Pelosi flipped on the switch at the radio station a little after 10:30 and declared solar “the future.” Here’s our photo of the events in the radio studio; the bright lights in the second photo lit up after she turned the solar system on.

KGO says it will be the first major broadcast media outlet in California to reach its listeners by solar power. The festivities will happen on the Ronn Owens show at 10:30 this morning in San Francisco, where Pelosi will turn on the system. The arrays are actually at KGO’s Fremont transmitter site, but a video will be streamed live for the studio audience in San Francisco.

SolFocus makes concentrating photovoltaic systems (CPV) that use mirrors and lenses to concentrate sunlight onto tiny, highly efficient solar cells. The systems are meant to cut back on one of the most expensive parts of traditional photovoltaic systems, the silicon-based solar panel (see our list of 13 CPV startups here). Many CPV projects are made to deliver that middle range of solar power needed for commercial installations — basically more power output than a solar panel on a residential rooftop, but less than a large, utility-scale solar-thermal project in the desert. The system that Pelosi is flipping on will provide 7.2 kilowatts.

While SolFocus is only a couple of years old, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company is well-funded and is starting to get its systems installed. The startup already raised $95 million from New Enterprise Associates, Moser Baer India, David Gelbaum, Metasystem Group, NGEN Partners and Yellowstone Capital, and it’s reported to be looking to add between $60 million and $80 million in a Series C round. In Spain SolFocus says it has completed its portion of a 3-megawatt CPV owned by Spain’s Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (ISFOC).

Images of SolFocus array courtesy of SolFocus.

We’re all familiar with standard photovoltaic solar panels, and many of us are starting to become acquainted with solar thermal tech that uses the sun’s heat to generate power, but there’s also a third option. Over a dozen startups are working on ways to use mirrors and lenses to concentrate sunlight hundreds of times onto tiny, highly efficient solar cells. Called concentrating photovoltaic technology (CPV) the systems are meant to cut back on one of the most expensive parts of traditional PV: the silicon-based solar panel.

CPV startups say the latest tech can provide solar systems at a lower cost per watt by producing as much or more power from the same amount of silicon. Though many companies are just starting to bring products to market, and the systems seem to require a lot of moving parts, these 13 companies are working out the details:

SolFocus: The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is only a little over two years old, but has been amassing significant funds from well-known Valley firms to deploy its CPV systems. The startup already raised $95 million from New Enterprise Associates, Moser Baer India, David Gelbaum, Metasystem Group, NGEN Partners and Yellowstone Capital, and it’s reported to be looking to add between $60 million and $80 million in a Series C round.

The company also has a serious presence in Spain. Its sister company SolFocus Europe has offices in Madrid, Spain, and this week the company said it had completed the first 200 kW installation of a 3 MW concentrating solar PV plant owned by Spain’s Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (ISFOC).

Cyrium Technologies: Cyrium makes the multi-junction solar cells for concentrating PV systems — these cells have to be highly efficient and robust. Just this week the company says it has closed a Series B round of $15 million in funding led by David Gelbaum’s Quercus Trust, and including BDC Venture Capital, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, and Pangaea Ventures.

Solar Systems Tech: Founded in 1991 by John Lasich, Hawthorne, Victoria, Australia-based Solar Systems has developed the “CS500 dish concentrator PV unit,” which stands 14 meters high, has 112 curved mirrors (each 1.2 square meters) and tracks the sun on a mounted steel frame. The company only sells solar power plants with a minimum of 8 dishes, and it says the CS500 produces up to 30 percent more electricity per installed watt and is cheaper per installed watt than traditional PV.

GreenVolts: GreenVolts is a three-year-old, San Francisco-based solar startup that sells a sun-tracking concentrating PV system called the CarouSol that can concentrate sunlight up to 625 times. GreenVolts says the system can produce energy at less than half the cost of traditional PV.

In 2006 the company won the California Clean Tech Open business competition, and a year later raised a $10 million Series A round led by Greenlight Energy Resources and included Avista and other investors. The company said earlier this month it was looking to raise funding of “less than $100 million” later this year.

Concentrix Solar: The Freiburg, Germany-based company was spun out of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in 2005. The company sells concentrating PV plants called Flatcon, which the company says produce electricity 10 to 20 percent cheaper than standard PV.

For about two years the company has been operating a pilot production line and by the end of the summer plans to have started up another 25 MW production line. Concentrix is backed by Good Energies and Abengoa Solar and has a joint venture with Abengoa, called Concentrix Iberia, for the Spanish markets.

Silicon Valley Solar: The two year old company was founded by Patrick Callinan and backed by a $10.2 million Series A round from Bessemer Venture Partners. The company’s Sol-X concentrator is a flat plate internal concentrator, which is low cost and delivers two times the concentration and reduces silicon by 50 percent. The system also doesn’t rely on a tracking system, so there are fewer moving parts (which cuts the cost and complexity of the system).

Energy Innovations: “EI” is a startup that makes a variety of solar photovoltaic products, including the Sunflower, which the company claims is “the world’s first high-concentration PV system for both commercial rooftop and ground-mounted applications.” Energy Innovations is backed by Bill Gross (dotcom entrepreneur turned cleantech investor) and his Idealab incubator, as well as Mohr Davidow.

Soliant Energy: Soliant’s rooftop concentrating solar panels are the same dimension and weight as conventional PV panels, so are much easier to install than many of the other CPV systems out there. The systems use triple junction cells that can deliver 40 percent efficiency, and the lenses concentrate the sunlight by 500 times.

Amonix: Torrance, Calif.-based Amonix is almost 2 decades old, which has given them a chance to go through 6 generations of improvements on their high concentration PV systems. The lenses concentrate the sunlight over 500 times and the company says it manufactures its high efficiency solar cells “at existing microelectronic chip manufacturing foundries,” which can deliver significant cost savings.

Green & Gold Energy: This Australian startup was formed in 2005 with $250K in seed funding from the founder. The company has now grown large enough that it says it has already committed to sell 400 MW per year of its SunCube concentrating solar PV systems. The company only officially launched its SunCube technology in February of this year but says it intends to sell 1 GW of SunCube manufacturing facilities around the world. G&GE also claims it has “placed the largest CPV industry order to date for 105 MWs of Emcore’s world leading 1,000 sun concentrator cells.”

Pyron solar: We first heard about Pyron Solar when the company raised Series A financing from New Energies Invest for its concentrating solar PV systems. The company, which is headquartered in San Diego, Calif., has a working 6.6 kW prototype of its unusual solar system that floats in water, which helps to cool the system and can prevent damage. The solar setup uses three 15-meter-diameter arrays on a two-axis tracker with multi-junction PV cells from Spectrolab.

Sol3g: Like SolFocus solar concentrating PV system maker Sol3g is building out a part of the 3 MW solar system that belongs to the Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems in Castilla La Mancha. Founded in 2004, the company is based in Cerdanyola, Spain, and says the PV surface of its system is 400 times smaller than that of a traditional PV system, “with the consequent cost saving.”

Cool Earth Solar: You might have seen pictures of this one across the web; the solar system that looks like a oversized foil balloon. Cool Earth Solar makes inflated mirror concentrators, half made of reflective mylar and half clear film. Inside the bubble is a high-efficiency PV receiver. The system is supposedly designed to be lightweight and easy enough to string up but rugged enough to withstand 100 mph winds. In February the company said it had raised $21 million.

SolFocus, a startup that designs and builds solar concentrating photovoltaic systems, says this morning that it has completed the first 200-kilowatt phase of a sizable 3 MW system in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. The solar plant, which SolFocus claims is the world’s first commercial-scale concentrating photovoltaic system, is owned by the Spanish Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (ISFOC). It will both produce clean power and act as a testing ground for various concentrating solar PV technologies.

Concentrating solar PV is a more nascent technology compared to both traditional solar photovoltaic systems and solar thermal plants that use the sun’s heat to produce power. The concentrating photovoltaic plants use arrays with lenses and curved mirrors to focus sunlight onto cells in order to produce more power with less material.

In the case of SolFocus, the startup says its concentrating technology allows a one-square-centimeter cell to capture more than 500 square centimeters of sunlight. Such a setup reduces the number of expensive panels used, which can significantly cut down on the cost of the system; SolFocus says it uses 0.1 percent of the solar cell material required by a standard PV setup.

The startup, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., and has a sister company, SolFocus Europe, in Madrid, has been filling its war chest to help it build more systems like the ISFOC plant. In June the two-year-old company was reportedly looking to add between $60 million and $80 million in a Series C round.  Previously the company was funded to the tune of $95 million by New Enterprise Associates, Moser Baer India, David Gelbaum, Metasystem Group, NGEN Partners and Yellowstone Capital.

Next up, the company begins work on the second phase of the ISFOC project, boosting its total capacity to 500 kW.

SolFocus, which makes systems that concentrate sunlight onto solar cells, has been slowly adding to its war chest over the last year. And according to a report out today from VentureWire, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company isn’t done fundraising just yet, and is looking to add between $60 million and $80 million in a Series C round. That would be in addition to the $95 million that the firm has already raised.

Concentrating solar photovoltaic systems are a weird bird. They fall somewhere between the massive solar thermal plants being built in the desert, and the standard photovoltaic panels that are becoming common on rooftops around the world. Unlike standard solar panel systems, “concentrating PV” setups use arrays with lenses and curved mirrors to focus the sunlight onto cells, which can produce more power with less material — SolFocus notes a 1 square centimeter cell can capture more than 500 square centimeters of sunlight. The setup reduces the amount of largely silicon-based panels used, and can significantly cut down on the cost of the system.

SolFocus is a little over two years old and is trying to grow fast in an attempt to commercialize its technology. The company is already selling select products to customers for installations as test sites, like a 500-kilowatt installation for the Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems program in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. Last July it bought Madrid-based solar tracking company InSpira to help scale the business by bringing down the cost of the trackers it uses.

The VentureWire report says SolFocus is now looking to raise funds for “growth and manufacturing.” Previously the company was funded by New Enterprise Associates, Moser Baer India, David Gelbaum, Metasystem Group, NGEN Partners and Yellowstone Capital.

Det är alltid positivt att läsa om förbättrad teknik och fallande priser när det gäller förnyelsebar energi. Sunrgi, som är baserat i Hollywood, skall producera koncentrerande solfångare (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics™, XCPV™), dvs linser (freshnel) som koncentrerar ljuset ca 1600 gånger innan de träffar solcellerna. Man påstår sig komma upp i en effektivitet på 37,5%, vilket får betraktas mycket högt i solcellssammanhang. Eftersom del blir förluster i koncentrationen samt i värmeutvecklingen i fokus så låter det mycket optimistiskt men vi får se hur bra de är när de börjar levereras, vilket väntas ske inom12-15 månader. System kommer att levereras i första hand till storskaliga kunder och statliga institutioner och företag. Dessa solceller består dessutom inte av kisel vilket gör dem okänsliga för eventuellt stigande världsmarknadspriser på kisel.

“Solar Power at 5 cents per kWh would be a world-changing breakthrough,” said Craig Goodman, president, National Energy Marketers Association. “It would make solar generation of electricity as affordable as generation from coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy”

“In a little more than a year we were able to develop and successfully test XCPV,” said Robert S (Bob) Block, co-founder and SUNRGI principal. “We expect the SUNRGI system to become available for both on and off-grid power applications, worldwide, in twelve to fifteen months”

Vad som skiljer SUNRGI’s XCPV system från andra solfångarkoncept är bl.a.:

• Extrem koncetration av solstrålarna
• Kylsystem för att förlänga solcellerna livslängd
• Ett två-axlars tracking-system som ger optimal solinfångning över hela dagen. (175% av ett fixt system)
• Billigt och modulärt system för storskaliga lösningar.

Skall bli intressant att se om specificationerna och tidsramarna, samt ekonomin, kan hållas. Skulle de bara vara i närheten av dessa utlovade siffror så är konceptet mycket intressant. Dock ställer jag mig frågande varför man inte tar hand om överskottsvärmen i ett vätskebundet system, samt om de ekonomiska uträkningarna verkligen kan stämma eftersom Soliant och SolFocus, som är liknande lösningar, inte kommer i ner i dessa 30 öre/kWh.

When it comes to the fundamentals of education, there are the “three Rs”:  Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic.

Environmentalism’s Three Rs:  Reduce use; Reuse things; Recycle as much as possible.

And, for energy, there are these Three Rs: Reduce use (via efficiency and conservation); Renewable power as much as possible; Remediate for any use of non-renewable power sources.

SolFocus   has a concentrated solar power (CSP) system

The primary and secondary mirrors focus the sun’s energy 500 times onto the optical rod, which guides the light onto the high-efficiency solar cell that is more than twice as efficient as the average silicon cell. 

Actually, it is thus a concentrated solar photo-voltaiic (CPV) system rather CSP … 

The CPV structure is put on a dual-axis tracking system to track the sun while concentrating the sun’s rays onto photo-voltaiics, thus significantly upping the power output per every photo-voltaiic element. SolFocus claims this as a 40 increase in PV element output.

When it comes to PV systems, the PV elements are generally the highest cost, thus upping the power output through the use of less expensive materials can reduce (even significantly) the cost per generated kilowatt hour of electricity.  SolFocus is laying out a strategy for their CPV systems to attain cost parity (or even beat) traditional fossil-fuel energy systems, even without a price on carbon.

Using just 1/1,000th the active material found in a standard solar panel, over 95 percent of the system is aluminum and glass both of which are easily sourced and formed worldwide, making the technology highly scaleable. The streamlined design is also fully enclosed which protects critical components from environmental degradation. In combination, these factors result in a system which is very high output and highly reliable, two key components in achieving the critical factor of cost-parity to fossil fuel energy.

As one impressive element, SolFocus’s CSP system can be almost entirely from recycled products: 97% of its weight is aluminum and glass. Imagine the cans and bottles from your curbside recycling collection ending up in solar power systems in their next lives. 

Thus, it seems that SolFocus paid attention to their educational Three Rs as they seem to be getting the fundamentals right.  When it comes to Environmentalism’s and Energy’s Three Rs, SolFocus is starting to look rather Energy Smart, as their product Reuses Recycled materials to produce Renewable power.  Three critical Rs.   That is pretty good. (And, you can argue that the concentration and tracking of the sun ‘Reuses’ the PV to far more efficiently produce Renewable power.) And, the Energy Smart person will seek to reduce energy usage before even turning on the switch (thus, “Reduce” should be covered) and, if using SolFocus/solar power, “Remediate” doesn’t need to even be on the table.

One result of SolFocus’s getting their Rs right is the potential that their cradle-to-grave carbon footprint could be quite low. According to discussions with SolFocus staff at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC), their preliminary (not yet finished) analyses suggest that they might have the lowest cradle-to-grave carbon footprint of any renewable energy option (that means of any energy option) available at this time. If true, this makes SolFocus’ cost-effective option for solar electricity just that much more appealing.

Uma companhia espanhola, que derivou do PARK – Palo Alto Research Center, uma unidade de investigação e desenvolvimento da Rank Xerox, está a instalar no Sul de Espanha uma nova central de energia solar de 3 Megawatts. E depois?

E depois, que a companhia espanhola, a SOLFOCUS, defende que utiliza uma nova técnica de construção de painéis. Que utiliza muito menos sílica que os painéis normais até agora produzidos e que, por via disso ajusta melhor a capacidade de receber os raios e, consequentemente, produzir mais energia.

Precisamente pelo uso dessa “técnica” a companhia alega que consegue produzir com mais eficiência em menor custo. Um custo de 50 cêntimos o watt, em vez dos normais 3 dólares o watt – o que um painel solar normal fará e terá de custo.

Seja tal verdade ou não, a realidade é que em Espanha existem empresas (e presumivelmente, o Estado por detrás…) a mexerem-se na produção própria de painéis – energia solar, já a um nível de investigação/produção elevado, e a investirem como objectivo estratégico em investigação e desenvolvimento.

(Nota: repare-se no pormenor delicioso e irónico de na página da Solfocus, o português como língua estar ausente, e o Inglês aparecer debaixo da bandeira americana… revelador)

Em Portugal somos muito mais avançados. Temos projectos turísticos megalómanos sistematizados pelo Governo (não importa qual), com anúncios bombásticos. Objectivo: transformar os portugueses em empregados de mesa e fornecedores de serviços de baixo custo e pouca incorporação de valor, seja em que escala seja medido. Para tal lançam-se investimentos:

A população destas áreas nem percebe a rocha na cabeça que lhes vai acertar.

De inicio e como entrada levarão com especulação imobiliária. Seguido de aumento generalizado de preços, isto é, inflação. Depois sazonalidade de preços e fim d e tranquilidade.

Pelo meio perceberão que o prometido desenvolvimento chegará, mas não será para eles.

No fim quando fizerem as contas, perceberão( alguns) que ficaram mais pobres, mais excluidos.

Razão para tal: porque vêem a riqueza ao lado de casa, mas não a sentem no bolso, e os empregos que foram gerados são de baixa ou média qualificação – nada em industrias de ponta (ou sequer em indústrias do que seja…) ou que gere desenvolvimento de novos mercados.

São apenas condenados a pagar um custo de vida de cidade litoral, mas vivendo no interior.

É uma excelente opção estratégica e política, para criar cidadãos submissos.

Mas não há problema. Ninguém se incomoda com isto. A cidadania submissa é um conceito esotérico. Até um dia…

SolFocus, manufacturer of solar energy solutions including concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems and Spain’s Institute of Concentration Photovoltaics Systems (ISFOC) announced two days ago the installation of the first CPV array in the ISFOC’s 3 MW project in Castilla-LaMancha.

SolFocus CPV Array installed at ISFOC power field in Puertollano, Spain. (Courtesy of SolFocus)

The ISFOC project is sponsored by the government of Castilla-La Mancha. Its program supports participating companies by carrying out important R&D efforts on their installed systems. This includes studies and norms, developments on measurement technology for large systems, reliability testing, maintenance, and analysis of solar radiation and energy produced.

The companies awarded the first 1.7MW phase of CPV pilot plants were Isofoton (Spain – 700kW), SolFocus (US – 500kW), and Concentrix (Germany – 500kW).

In November 2007 a 1,3 MW second phase to complete the program was awarded to Sol3g (Spain – 400kW) and Concentración Solar La Mancha (Spain), EMCORE Corp. (US) and Arima Eco (Taiwan) – 300kW each.

HCPV System by Sol3g, another of the companies working in Castilla-La Mancha with ISFOC

According to Dr. Pedro Banda, Director General of the ISFOC, “This is a very important occasion as it brings the industry one step closer towards commercial deployment of CPV technologies. For this unprecedented and ambitious program, the ISFOC has selected CPV technologies that are the most advanced and have the brightest futures.” He added, “SolFocus’ first installation marks the official launch of the power-generation phase of the program.”

SolFocus, with European headquarters in Madrid and United States headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., has over 40kW of test arrays installed at various sites.

The ISFOC was established in 2006 to be a center of reference on the power, reliability and productivity of commercial CPV systems. The innovative approach taken by the ISFOC is becoming a model for similar projects under consideration around the world.

Feed-in tariffs in Spain, initiated in 2004 to reach the European Union’s goal of increasing renewable energy use to 20 percent by 2020, guarantee energy produced by from renewable resources will be bought by local utilities at three times the normal market value for 25 years. The Spanish utilities have the obligation of giving renewable energy companies a connection point to the grid.

According to Reuters, these incentives have been instrumental for the growth of photovoltaic solar power plants in Spain, that is exceeding the government’s expectations. With the current momentum, Spain will be over its target for 2010 of 400 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) power by next summer. By that time, the actual installed capacity might be somewhere between 800 MW and 1,200 MW, according to the Ministry of Industry.

At 1,200 MW, PV power would still only account for 0.4 percent of total power, so there is still a long way to go. Another weak spot in the market is the low penetration of small installations in homes, with big plants – from one to 25 megawatts – being far more typical.

Industry Ministry officials said that once there are 1,200 MW of PV solar power, the tariff rate will be reduced by 5 percent each year. Investors and politicians are optimistic that in six years the incentives will no longer be necessary. Costs are expected to fall as competition spawns cheaper, more efficient solar technologies allowing firms in the sector to sustain themselves at normal market prices, they say.

Solaris
Originally uploaded by Steven2358

But it is not just photovoltaics, the solar market is expanding accross the board. In the last months, we have seen a non-stop string of announcements of projects and deals:

Deals and solar plants:

Who: Sunpower Corp. (PV, US), with financing from AIG Financial products (US) and 360 Corporate (Spain)
What: 18-megawatt solar electric power plant
Where: Olivenza (Badajoz province, Extremadura)
Generation: more than 32 million kilowatt-hours of power per year

Who: ICP Solar Technologies Inc. (Montreal, Canada)
What: agreement to provide US$ 770,284 in solar modules to Tejasol (Spain) in Spain, with a view to open offices in Madrid and pending orders amounting to US$ 18.5 million.

Who: Solel Solar Systems (Israel) and Sacyr-Vallehermoso Group (Spain)
What: agreement to build three solar thermal power plants
Total capacity: 150MW
Investment: US$890 million

Who: Solar parks of Extremadura, formed by Ecoenergías (Spain) and Deutsche Bank (Germany)
What: 40 MW solar plant by the name of Merida Solar 2008
Investment: 300 million euros (430.6 million dollars)
Generation: 72,3 GWh per year (for the needs of around 80,000 people, approx.)
Where: Valverde (Extremadura)

Who: City Solar (PV, Germany)
What: Three solar plants with a total nominal power of 26 MW between them
Where: Castile-La Mancha and Extremadura

Manufacturing plant openings and expansions

Who: Schott (solar panels and solar receivers, Germany)
What: a manufacturing facility for solar receivers (their second in Spain)
Where: Seville (Southern Spain)
Investment: approximately $28 million

Who: Conergy (PV, Germany)
What: solar PV structures manufacturing plant
Where: Daganzo (Madrid)

Who: SolFocus (Concentrating photovoltaics, US)
What: European Headquarters covering business development, marketing, engineering, R&D and field work for the European markets.
Where: Daganzo (Madrid)

A telling fact of the rapid expansion of the solar energy industry worldwide is how several of these companies have almost simultaneously announced parallel projects in another hot market, the United States. For example, Solel is developing the Mojave solar park for PG&E, a huge project (553 MW) and Schott (as recently covered) is also opening a US plan in California.

The cleantech world is abuzz with SolFocus’ latest round of $52Million in VC financing.

RedHerring article and an excerpt:

A little less than half of the amount will be used to launch SolFocus Europe, the new Madrid-based subsidiary, while the remainder will go to the parent company as a second funding round. New Enterprise Associates was joined in the deal by Moser Baer India, Metasystem Group, NGEN Partners, Yellowstone Capital, David Gelbaum, and other investors, the company said. The infusion brings SolFocus’ total funding to date to $84 million.

A more disturbing note is the following:

Earlier this summer, SolFocus bought Madrid-based Inspira, a maker of devices that, by tracking the sun in two directions, can get up to 40 percent more power from conventional silicon-based panels over the course of a day in sunny climes than conventional trackers, Ms. Hartsoch said.

While news like this is usually lauded as a success, it’s a bit of a false positive for a few reasons.

Why would you need that much money?
It’s strange that SolFocus would need this much money without much by way of actual business being done. It raised $32 Million in its series A. Where did that money go? Well, I won’t speculate. But I can be certain that it didn’t go to a large manufacturing operation (they signed a deal with a contract manufacturer a year ago), it didn’t go into marketing for several large, multi-megawatt “test” installations – none have been reported.

In fact, SolFocus’ website only admits to having one 500kW test facility (nothing to write home about), a small pilot manufacturing facility (2MW…I could build that in my backyard), and a lot of money raised. I’ll ask again, where did all that money go?

They still need technology?
You would think that a company named “SolFocus” wouldn’t need to buy another company for its solar alignment technology. This paints a picture that SolFocus has been unable to get its alignment technology to work. While this ought not be a big deal, I would suspect that it is a deal breaker.

The solar industry is booming and concentrator technology should be a big hit. They were an early entrant. They should be rocking and rolling right now with potential deals. But how does an upstart like GreenVolts get so many more demo deals done in half the time? (I will disclose that one of my Stanford classmates is a VP at GreenVolts; he’s also one of the smartest people I know – which probably explains why they’re so successful).

The story / conjecture
You shouldn’t be raising a $52Million round unless you’re trying to actually get a business off the ground with some hard assets. This story about “cornering the European market” sounds bogus. You can’t corner the market with a product you haven’t shipped to customers yet. You can’t even ship a product that you didn’t even have a core technology for until you bought it a few weeks ago. So while I don’t have any idea of what’s going on over at SolFocus, this fund raising report smacks of suspicion.

This deal smells of WebVan where scale was bought before the model was proven. SolFocus doesn’t appear to have the technology platform or manufacturing base that is usually the usage of such a high round of financing. The valuations sound really high and the milestones they’re reporting seem unreached. That doesn’t make out for a good story.

The Wall Street Journal reflected recently on how some of Spain’s biggest renewable-energy companies have been planting their flag in the U.S., with big deals by utility Iberdrola, energy conglomerate Acciona, and wind turbine maker Gamesa.

On the wind side, Acciona announced last month it has acquired exclusive rights to develop 1300MW worth of wind assets in the states of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, USA. The development will take place through an acquisition of projects from EcoEnergy, LLC, an alternative energy solutions developer. Acciona expects to install approximately 150MW or more in 2008 from this pipeline. It will be supplying its own wind turbines for each of these development projects from its new US production facility in Iowa.

As a another proof it has been busy this summer, Acciona also announced another deal, this time in solar power. It secured $266 million in financing from Spanish and Portuguese banks for its Solar One project in Nevada, the world’s third-largest solar plant.

As for Gamesa Energy USA, it could have as much as 1500 MW installed in the US by 2010. It has 8 wind farms in different stages of completion, 2 of them in Wisconsin and a further two in North Western Illinois.

The string of acquisitions by the third musketeer, Iberdrola, has been well covered here, and elsewhere, the latest of which being the purchase of the New York based utility Energy East.

But proving that the flurry of deals and acquisitions is a two way street, the US solar technology company SolFocus Inc., Mountain View, Ca., has announced it has reached an agreement to acquire a Spanish company called InSpira specializing in a key technology that makes solar power more efficient.

HPCV system by Inspira and Daido Steel

Madrid-based InSpira makes solar trackers, mechanical telescopic arms that follow the sun across the sky and focus the sun’s rays onto all sorts of solar power devices, making them more efficient. Trackers can boost yields by 40% — a huge difference when most commercial solar panels only get between 10% and 25% of the sun’s energy. Trackers are especially crucial to the most advanced kind of solar power devices, known as concentrators: if the sun’s rays are off by more than 1-2 degrees, no power is generated.

According to Keith Johnson, from WSJ, the strategy of SolFocus chief executive Gary Conley with this deal is to kill two birds with one stone. He will get access to a leading maker of tracker technology, boosting SolFocus’ bid to make cost-efficient solar power, though he vows to honor InSpira’s supply deals with rivals such as Germany’s Concentrix Solar GMBH. He will also get a bridgehead in Europe, where subsidies and government support for solar power and other renewable energies are far ahead of the U.S. (See here our previous post on the activities of SolFocus in Spain)

Molinos de viento Windmills in La Mancha (Both the old and new varieties)

Originally uploaded by Zilargile (Top) and Strawjam (Bottom)

Everyone that has heard about La Mancha, knows from the musical and the Quixote novel that it is a sun-drenched land of windmills that might be giants (or not).

With all that sun and wind, the thinking of the locals seems to have been”If we got them, let´s put them to good use! “

Correspondingly, the landscape in the region is dotted here and there with the iconic modern version of the windmills, that make a stellar appearance in the movie “Volver” by Almodovar.

Trying to profit from the other natural resource in abundance in the area, regional authorities are pushing forward an ambitious plan to boost solar energy. Besides the plants mentioned in my previous posts in Puertollano (solar thermal power), the city is the site for the Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems or ISFOC (website in Spanish only).

The Institute launched a RFP for the development of plants using Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) technologies for a total capacity of 2.7 MW. The companies selected to build the plants are:

Guascor Foton (Spain/US, 300 KW)

Concentrix (Germany, 500 KW)

SolFocus (US, 500 KW)

Isofoton (Spain, 700 KW)

These commercial plants are going to be grid-connected and sited in different provinces of the region of Castile-La Mancha. The headquarters of ISFOC will house demonstration plants (200 KW) for each of the technologies employed in the commercial plants.

Concentrator Photovoltaic systems are experiencing a very interesting moment worldwide, with record gains in efficiency by Spectrolab (Boeing) and many companies taking their products to market. Spectrolab has an agreement with Solar Systems (Australia) to provide it with 500,000 concentrator solar cell assemblies to be used in remote rural communities.

Guascor Foton is one of the pioneers in Europe in this technology, the development of which stems from a partnership with the American company Amonix. Guascor Foton installed the first commercial high concentration CPV plant in Europe at the campus of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. This project was developed in collaboration with the Institute of Solar Energy from the UPM and the Spanish Government Agency for Energy Diversification (IDAE).

Concentrator PV system on tracking unit built by Guascor Fotón at the UPM

The company is also working in three aditional solar plants using the same technology with a joint capacity of 3.5 MW in different parts of Spain.