Solar Company Receives Historic Commitment from DOE

For the first time ever, a private enterprise specializing in alternative energy has received a loan guarantee from the federal government.

On March 20, the Department of Energy issued a press release announcing a commitment of $535 million to Solyndra, Inc., a Fremont, CA-based company that develops and produces innovative solar “panels”.  According to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Nobel-Prize-winning physicist and former director of the renowned Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “This investment is part of President Obama’s aggressive strategy to put Americans back to work and reduce our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, renewable sources of energy.”  The funding will be used to construct the company’s second commercial-scale manufacturing plant, which Solyndra estimates will create up to three thousand new jobs through the construction and operation of the facility, not to mention the trickle-down effect of creating additional jobs in photovoltaic installation.  Upon completion, the plant will be capable of producing enough panels annually to generate 500 megawatts of clean electricity, an amount capable of powering 400,000 homes a year.

Solyndra specializes in cylindrical photovoltaics, rather than the familiar angled, flat panel.  Instead of silicon, these cells are made from a compound known as CIGS (short for copper, indium, gallium and selenide), the same compound used in thin-film solar panels.  Though less efficient than traditional arrays, CIGS-based photovoltaics are cheaper to produce, and Solyndra’s tube-shaped design significantly increases efficiency by allowing the cell to gather sunlight from underneath as well as above, exploiting potential energy that would otherwise be lost; Solyndra’s arrays are typically placed above a white substrate to increase the amount of sunlight reflected back toward the cylinders’ undersides.

These arrays are practical and cost-effective in other ways, as well; because they are flat rather than angled, they are cheaper and easier to install than other solar systems and are less susceptible to the elements, especially the gusts of wind that can damage silicon panels.  To compete with the cheap energy generated by fossil fuels, however, Solyndra’s arrays must be especially large, meaning that they are only designed for installation on rooftops of industrial and other large-scale buildings, at least until efficiency improves enough to make smaller arrays feasible.  (For more on Solyndra’s innovative development, see our post last November.)

The loan, granted under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, will cover approximately three-quarters of the total project costs, according to Solyndra.  Perhaps more significantly, the announcement clearly signals the start of a new relationship between the federal government and the alternative energy industry; DOE officials claim that more loans are fast on the way.  Soon environmentalists may have another meaning in mind when they think “green”…

Sources: “Obama Administration Offers $535 Million Loan Guarantee to Solyndra, Inc.”, US Dept. of Energy, press release (March 20, 2009); “Solyndra Offered $535 Million Loan Guarantee by the U.S. Department of Energy”, Solyndra, Inc., press release (March 20, 2009); “Solar panel maker gets first-ever alternative energy Fed loan guarantee”, Scientific American website (www.sciam.com);“Energy Department Issues First Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee”, The New York Times website (greeninc.blogs.nyt.org); The New Shape of Solar?”, Solar One web archives; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory website (www.lbl.gov).


Posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 2:18 pm | Tagged in Solar One | posted by Bill

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