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The Oregonian blogosphere reports that Intel plans to turn on a relatively small but symbolically potent solar photovoltaic power system this Monday at its Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro, outside of Portland (seen being installed in the accompanying photo). The story says the 100-KW array--which cost around $800 grand-- is "the first step in what the company says could be an 'aggressive' plan to employ solar energy. Other projects include PV-powered data centers in New Mexico and a solar thermal hot-water system in India.
Can a partially photovoltaicized retrofit to a chip fab facilities' power grid be far behind? With fabs in the aforementioned New Mexico, and Israel and Arizona too--all locales famous for copious irradiant sunshine throughout the year--as well as cloudier sites in Ireland, Oregon, and China, Intel's own rooftop and ground-mounted real estate cries out for PV.
But which PV panels might win the bids for such projects?
Would it be First Solar, reigning kings of thin film so often compare to Intel because of their similar approach to manufacturing scale-up and large numbers of Intel refugees, starting with company president and former Fab 11X manager, Bruce Sohn? Cadmium telluride likes those grey skies better than crystalline silicon, so maybe the Irish campus could host the modules from their departed colleagues.
Or might it be Sulfurcell, which is ramping up its manufacturing with the help of tens of millions of Euro in funding from the Intel Capital and others? Although not quite ready for mass-production prime time, the German TFPV company's CIGS could give First Solar a run for its money in places like Ireland and Oregon (and elsewhere) when/if it gets its commercial act together.
Then there's Trony Solar, the Chinese amorphous-silicon start-up with 35 MW going on 105 MW of production capacity in which Intel Capital has invested a cool $20 mill. Seems like a logical candidate for an PV installation at the company's new 300-mm fab in Dalian. Certainly easier to ship those tons of modular glass from Shenzhen to northeast China instead of elsewhere on the globe.
Still, the obvious choice for eventually supplying at least the heart of the modules for any hypothetical Intel solar-power initiative, especially for the firm's sites in the U.S., is its very own solar spinoff, SpectraWatt, in which the company has invested a goodly chunk of change as part of a $50 million investment round. The PV newbie's first crystalline-silicon cell fab is supposedly coming online in Hillsboro, OR, deep in the Silicon Forest ventricles of the Mothership.
The official word at the time of SpectraWatt's launch in June was that products would be forthcoming by mid-2009, but the powers that be didn't offer up (m)any specifics about technology, manufacturing, and product lines then, and they've said diddly-squat since then as the start-up went quietly went about its execution strategies.
So what gives at SpectraWatt these days? To no one's surprise, alot and nothing. In other words, no one is willing to say much about the hive of activity there.
But when I reached out to the solar-cell concern in hopes of new info, at least I did get a response from a V-level exec (AKA "company spokesman"), who confirmed the obvious: "Since the launch we have been operating in 'stealth' mode, and we are not conducting any new interviews," he replied in an email.
He did give me hope for some transparency next year though, possibly in 1H2009.
As with all things Intellian, they do what they want and they tell us what they want, when they want. And we eager scribes and pundits wait, patient, ever hopeful, mildly bemused by the tightly controlled corporate "messaging" we have grown to know and loathe/love.
