Green Options

The trickle of green jobs into the Rust Belt has been rapidly swelling into torrent, and with headquarters in Michigan it was only a matter of time before Dow Corning joined the “green rush” to a more sustainable economy. The manufacturing giant has just announced that it will begin construction on a new facility to manufacture monosilane gas, which among other things is used to make thin film solar cells.  The plant will be constructed in Michigan’s Thomas Township.

At a cost of $100 million, the new monosilane gas facility represents a full-throttle comment to solar power by Dow Corning.  The company’s headquarters in Midland, Michigan is also set to open a solar panel installation and solar education center.

Solar venture investments hit a three-year low in the second quarter, the Cleantech Group said Wednesday. According to Brian Fan, senior director of research for the group, solar startups in North America, Europe, China and India raised a total of only $113.8 million for the quarter, which is down 7 percent from $365.7 million in the first quarter and down 86 percent from $834.7 million in the year-ago quarter.

California utility Pacific Gas and Electric announced yesterday it is signing a 20-year agreement to purchase the first 10 megawatts of electricity from Sempra Energy’s El Dorado Solar project near Boulder City Nevada.

The plant was built by Tempe, Arizona-based Firsr Solar using thin film solar panels made of low-cost cadmium tellurium as the material converting sunlight to electrical energy, requiring only 1% of the silicon used in crystalline solar cells. The El Dorado unit is North America’s largest thin-film solar plant, and has plans to expand by another 50 megawatts next year, all part of Sempra’s plan to eventually produce 500MW of thin-film solar power, CEO Michael Altman told Reuters, adding “The size and scope of this new solar generation facility clearly demonstrates that we can build projects on a scale that helps utilities meet their renewable energy goals”.

On occasion, we will write headlines praising developments in things like the ‘the world’s first tidal power turbine‘ or ‘the world’s largest offshore wind farm.’  To set the record straight, we don’t do this only for the purposes of sensationalist self-aggrandizement, we also do it because there are really some exciting developments in the fast-moving world of cleantech; such language is normally apropos.

Global Solar Energy announced Wednesday the full operation of the largest solar electric array worldwide using CIGS photovoltaic technology. CIGS, or copper indium gallium diselenide thin-film solar cells are not dependent on silicon and instead use highly-available raw materials that are easily integrated into a wide range of applications.

According to IBM’s annual “Next Five in Five” report, thin-film solar cells will be embedded in driveways, sidewalks, paint, rooftop, and windows within 5 years.

This past week was an eventful one for thin-film solar companies Nanosolar and AVA Solar , which received a total of over $400 million in funding.

Nanosolar, which took in $300 million, has now raised nearly half a billion dollars of capital. The company plans to use the money to expand thin-film solar panel production at its San Jose and Berlin factories.