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GE raises ante in thin-film PV game with PrimeStar Solar majority stake

12 June 2008 | By Tom Cheyney | Chip Shots
General Electric, through its Energy division, has increased its equity stake to a majority holding in cadmium-telluride (CdTe) thin-film start-up PrimeStar Solar, and in so doing, has raised the stakes in the photovoltaic solar contest. The move by GE puts First Solar, the market leader in TFPV, squarely in the competitive crosshairs of one of the largest industrial conglomerates and R&D powerhouses.

Although First Solar should be concerned, PrimeStar and its megacorporate benefactor have a huge task ahead of them. PrimeStar, which opened its doors in June 2006, does not have an operational pilot line and has several milestones yet to accomplish before it does, according to a recent review of its Solar America Initiative incubator program.

While the CdTe company qualified advanced window layer films earlier this year, it has yet to finish the design of its pilot line equipment or complete the optimization of its cell efficiencies on minimodule substrates, let alone optimize module efficiencies on those substrates or build and commission the pilot line gear, according to the report. I hope to get an update on PrimeStar's current status at next week's Photovoltaics Summit 2008 in San Diego, where the company's Fred Seymour will be presenting.

Contrast and compare that modest accomplishment set with Wall Street darling First Solar's dizzying capacity buildout, which will reach 495 MW this year and hit the 1-GW mark, with its Malaysian fabs coming online, by the end of 2009. It already boasts the lowest cost per manufactured watt in the PV arena and continues to drive that number down, while its conversion efficiencies keep increasing, slowly but surely. The several gigawatts' worth of long-term module supply contracts already on First Solar's books should quickly gobble up all that added manufacturing output.

PrimeStar is not the only CdTe wannabe chasing First Solar. AVA Solar has said it expects its 25-MW pilot facility to be operational by the second half of 2008. Q-Cells unit Calyxo, formed in part through the parent's acquisition of Solar Fields a few years back, already has a 8-MW demo line and is building a new plant that is scheduled to reach 60-MW capacity by 2009.

Still, GE, no stranger to the mainstream power generation marketplace, also knows how to take a promising renewable-energy business and turn it into a very lucrative one. Its windpower segment, largely built on the remnants of Enron's wind biz, is now a fast-growing multibillion-dollar cashmaking machine.

In solar, GE already has a $100 million-plus operation, some of which has roots in its AstroPower acquisition in March 2004, although the company has been investigating PV for decades. If it can help PrimeStar build on and fully exploit its strong intellectual property (much of which came from work at the National Renewable Energy Lab) and process/materials technology knowledge bases, the upstart CdTe player could eventually challenge First Solar--as well as the crystalline silicon-based solar stalwarts.

The questions of the European Community's stance on cadmium safety and the global availability (or scarcity, depending on one's viewpoint) of raw and processed tellurium loom over all of the CdTe PV players. But it's hard to imagine a company like GE getting even deeper into the market if it thought either of those issues presented insurmountably tall hurdles to PrimeStar's ultimate success and profitability.

It may take a few years, but the CdTe TFPV space could yet turn into more than a one-horse race.

Reader comments

After visiting PrimeStar Solar's headquarters, I soon realized that they have a lot of work to do and was dismayed by their organization. One might expect to perhaps see some solar panels on top of the roof or ... something - even a fake prototype. Most companies have a "products" page on their website - PrimeStar has none. PrimeStar has a "customers" tab; however, it essentially says "go away - we are not taking orders". So - there you have it, a group of pointy headed types with their intellectual property and no production in sight.
By SolVista on 11 July 2008

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