Your daily dose of Photovoltaic Technology Developments and Solar News

When Matt Mede bought Thermal Technology last year, he had an idea for an application that "was perfect for the company's capabilities and know-how": the solar photovoltaic polysilicon furnace market. "It fits right in with the size of our systems, the type of heating, the atmospheric conditions, and the automation," says the company CEO/president. After a year of development work and about a million dollars in R&D outlay to perfect the technology and move forward with manufacturing, evidently Thermal Tech's first solar customer thinks so too.

Suntech releases its financial results before the markets open tomorrow, yet another benchmark solar company announcement during this very active earnings season. Three months ago, when the company's founder/chairman/CEO Zhengrong Shi looked ahead, he could not foresee the increasing turmoil in and pressure on the global financial markets nor the firm's plumetting share price. During an interview with Roger Efird, president of Suntech America, at Solar Power International last month, his crystal ball was not functioning, but he still had some interesting comments to make about Suntech and the industry.

MiaSolé launches an underwhelming new Website and becomes the latest to jump on that annoying photovoltaic company branding bandwagon--the capitalization of midname letters, Applied Materials actually makes money for the first time on solar, and First Solar celebrates an important anniversary--these items get the Chip Shots treatment in this edition of the blog.

The quarterly earnings season is in full bloom, a research report gets all jittery about certain Chinese solar PV companies, Time magazine lauds the loudest-mouthed CIGS contestant, Los Angeles will vote on a solar-power ballot proposition, and a brilliant new product that will revolutionize solar panel...maintenance--all are discussed in this edition of the blog.

One of nature's metabolic processes, photosynthesis, has been a crucial solar-sourced element of Limoneira's fruit and nut growing business, giving life to the 115-year-old company's thousands of acres of citrus, avocado, pistachio, and cherry groves in California. Now the Santa Paula, CA-based firm has put the sun to work in another way, taking advantage of the photovoltaic effect.

Intel continues its investment binge in solar photovoltaics ventures with the announcement of a $20 million funding of thin-film PV company, Trony Solar Holdings, its first in China. The Shenzhen-based firm says it plans to use the money to build out its manufacturing capacity from 35 MW to 105 MW as well as augment its R&D efforts.

As his surprise appearance on the opening night of Solar Power International showed again, the sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger on a big screen can still get the juices flowing and the sound of his inimitable accent rarely fails to bring a smile to the faces of crowd members. After repeating one of his favorite solar cliches--"green for the environment, green for the economy"--his Ahnuldness spoke of a time when he envisions flying "in a helicopter up and down California and seeing no warehouses without solar on top."

The solar photovoltaic space has attracted increased investment from several deep-pocketed technology firms--Intel, IBM, Bosch, Hewlett-Packard, GE--over the past year. But none of them has the carbon-based pools of cash that the Masdar Initiative boasts, courtesy of its connection to the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., a unit of the Mubadala Development Co., which is wholly owned by--you guessed it--the United Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi.