Nanosolar Raises $300 Million, Plans to Further Accelerate Production
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 08.28.08
The Epic Battle to Power the World
Competition is good. Right now there are dozens of solar power firms fighting to bring inexpensive and clean energy to the world. Some are betting on solar thermal, like Ausra, while others like Day4 Energy are putting their chips on silicon-based solar panels, and a third group thinks that thin-film solar is the way to go. One thing is certain, there's a lot of innovation in the solar power world.
Nanosolar to Accelerate Production
One of the companies at the forefront of the fight to make thin-film solar viable is Nanosolar, and they just announced some good news on their blog. They were always well capitalized, but they raised $300 million more to accelerate the expansion of their production capability, bringing their total funding to about half a billion. This new money will help them upgrade their 430 megawatt San Jose factory and 620 megawatt Berlin factory.
Martin Roscheisen, Nanosolar CEO, writes:
Last December, we introduced the Nanosolar Utility Panel(TM) to enable solar utility power — i.e. giving utility-scale power producers the solar panel technology to build and operate cost efficient solar power plants.The tremendous demand for our unique product was matched by the desire to support us in scaling its availability even more rapidly and ambitiously.
The faster Nanosolar can drive down costs and inscrease total production, the better.
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Yay!
Maybe, by the time I have enough set aside for that solar installation on my house, I will be able to double the output of the project, or add emergency battery backup. Just in time for my next car to be solar charged.
Solar is the way to go! Biofuels seemed like a good idea, but the food-vs-fuel trade off and resources (land-water) redirection is inhuman.
Still, I hope the day solar tech finally replaces oil comes in my lifetime.
Excellent. Glad to see that solar investment is starting to approach the need for cleaner energy. Now we just need to keep scaling manufacturing capacity until we get to at least a few hundred gigawatts of panels per year.
Excellent. Glad to see that solar investment is starting to approach the need for cleaner energy. Now we just need to keep scaling manufacturing capacity until we get to at least a few hundred gigawatts of panels per year.
And @Marlboro: I'm not sure how old you are, but the day when oil leaves the energy mix had better darn well come in my lifetime, 'cause there won't be any more for another lifetime after that!