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Monday's announcement that Dow Chemical's Building Solutions unit has asked Global Solar Energy to participate in its Department of Energy Solar America Initiative (SAI) project to develop building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products came as no surprise--to me, anyway. During Chip Shots' visit to Global's Tucson, AZ, new plant last Friday, my hosts gave me a head's up on the news. The manufacturer (yes, manufacturer) of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film PV will work with the megacorporation's subsidiary to create and bring to market flexible solar-roofing materials, part of the SAI's goal of creating "solar electricity cost competitiveness with grid electricity by 2015."

"The flexible thin films bring the opportunity to add another layer to the solar industry by making OEM or custom solar panels a reality," opined Global Solar's Tim Teich, VP of sales and marketing. "That's your solar shingle, that's your rolled roofing, any side of your building that faces the sun can be an energy generator. If you visualize that laminated to the panels on this building as you walked in, it is really not that far off. It's just a matter of productizing it."


Desert sun: Global Solar's new factory.
(Photo: Tom Cheyney)

Dow is one of the main players in the SAI's Technology Pathway Partnership (TPP) announced in March 2007, a program budgeted at more than $165 million over its first three years that is meant to "accelerate the commercialization of US-produced solar PV systems." In addition to the Dow-led and Global Solar-fed project on "fully integrated building science solutions for residential and commercial PV energy generation," other efforts and their team leaders include high-efficiency concentrating PV power systems (Boeing Spectrolab), low-cost high-concentration PV systems for utility power generation (Amonix), a value-chain partnership to accelerate US PV growth (GE Energy), and development of an AC module system (GreenRay).

Projects with a thin-film PV flavor are also in the mix, including one for creating thin-film PV systems (Miasole), another for delivering grid-parity electricity on flat commercial rooftops using printed PV cells (Nanosolar), and yet another focused on producing low-cost thin-film BIPV systems (Uni-Solar Ovonics).

Miasole's status might be in doubt for its own TPP project, however, since Global Solar's participation in the Dow BIPV project means that Miasole could not come through with its own version of flexible CIGS PV material. A quick check of the SAI "fact sheet project prospectus" reveals Miasole as the original TFPV provider working with the Dow unit.

Confirming this without naming names, Global's Teich told me that "we've joined Dow's Solar America Initiative because one of the suppliers that they chose before could not deliver virtually anything in the thin-film CIGS. We've already achieved trauche one because of our 10% [conversion efficiency]."

"More importantly, that large company has made a decision to get into this in a very large way, since they provide materials to the big builders of the world," he continued. "That makes it a reality right away when that kind of company has committed an entire resource to that. And it's well down the path. I've been working with them for two years."

The first strings of flexible stainless-steel CIGS cells have started rolling out of the 110,000 square-foot Global Solar factory floor. The fab has started to fill up with process tools with more on the way and should ramp up to its initial 40-MW capacity by year's end. By 2010, if the company executes its game plan, the fab will expand to an eventual capacity of 140 MW.

Teich, CFO Steve Alexander, and especially CTO Jeff Britt gave me an extensive tour of the facility during my visit, followed by in-depth discussions over lunch. Look for more Chip Shots reports about Global Solar over the next week or two, with a look at the company's production line, its technology and products, the soon-to-be-built solar-module farm that will provide a portion of the plant's electricity, and other details about the CIGS innovator and its new desert home.