Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Co. (TSMC)(NYSE: TSM), the largest semiconductor maker in the world, has acquired a 21% stake in U.S. thin-film solar company Stion. Taiwan Semiconductor invested $50 million dollars in the company, which will be used to expand Stion’s manufacturing in San Jose. Taiwan Semiconductor will also license the technology for production overseas. This is Taiwan’s Semiconductor’s second foray into the solar industry. It bought a 20% stake in solar cell company Motech last year. Stion was founded in 2006 and is backed by venture capital investors,
including Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Braemar Energy Ventures.
In other solar news, Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. (6764.TO) announced that it will begin
full-scale development and expansion of its solar and energy business in
the European market in 2010. The company will expand beyond current offerings in residential solar products to offer systems that include solar modules, lithium-ion batteries for power storage and energy management systems. Sanyo says the systems will be scalable for use in homes, medium-sized stores and large factories. The company aims to achieve EUR 800 million in sales by 2016.
First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR) is also expanding in Europe. The company announced plans to double its manufacturing capacity in Germany to around 446 megawatts (MW) per year by 4Q11. This follows an admission by First Solar’s top European executive that the company
will be unable to meet the high level of demand for solar
modules in 2010. First Solar has three additional factories in different phases of construction in
France and Malaysia. When all of these factories are completed in 2012, the company will have a total of more than 2.1 gigawatts (GW) of manufacturing capacity worldwide.
Kyocera (NYSE: KYO), another of the world’s largest solar companies, began operations this month at its first U.S. manufacturing facility, located in San Diego, California. The facility has an initial capacity of 30 MW per year. The company said part of its reason for locating in the U.S. was to produce panels that would meet any ‘Buy
American’ provisions that may be enacted for government-supported
renewable energy projects. Kyocera also has operations in Japan, China, the Czech Republic and Mexico. The company has a goal of producing 1 GW of solar panels per year by 2013.
The U.S. Department of Energy offered its first loan guarantees for geothermal energy projects this past week. The company U.S. Geothermal Inc. (NYSE Amex: HTM) received a
commitment for a $102-million loan guarantee for a 22-MW power plant at Neal Hot Springs in Eastern Oregon. A separate partial guarantee was announced for a 49.5-MW power plant to be built by Nevada Geothermal Power Company (NGP). 80% of the $98 million loan provided by John Hancock Financial Services will be covered by the DOE’s Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP). The program was created by the 2009 Recovery Act to expedite the loan guarantee process, and it requires that lenders maintain at least 20% of the credit exposure. According to a recent report by the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA), 70 nations around the world currently have geothermal projects under consideration, marking a 52% increase from the last international report compiled in 2007. The U.S. is the current world leader in installed geothermal capacity with just over 3 GW.
Siemens Energy (NYSE: SI) announced a joint marketing agreement with the startup electric vehicle charging company Coulomb Technologies, Inc. The agreement will allow Siemens to offer Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network as part of its comprehensive smart grid offerings to utilities, municipalities and other energy customers. The deal is a huge boost for Coulomb, which only recently completed a Series B funding round for its technology, which enables drivers of electric vehicles to maintain an account for handling payments at charging stations across the country. Earlier this month, Coulomb announced it will provide nearly 5,000 home
and public charging stations for electric vehicles in nine US regions,
through a strategic partnership with Ford (NYSE: F), Chevrolet and the
Department of Energy.
Abu Dhabi’s alternative energy initiative Masdar selected the
bidding consortium of Total (NYSE: TOT) and Abengoa Solar as a partner
to own, build and operate a 100 MW concentrated solar plant–which will be one of the largest of its kind in the world. The power plant, called Shams 1, will cover 2.5 square-kilometers and consist of 768 parabolic trough collectors to be supplied by Abengoa Solar. The project is the first concentrated solar power plant to be registered under the United Nations’ Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) for generating carbon credits. Construction is set to begin during 3Q10 and is expected to take
approximately two years.
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