Thin-film solar PV producer HelioVolt has named Haresh Patel as its vice president of sales and marketing. Patel joins the copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide (CIGS) TFPV company with more than 20 years of experience at firms such as WJ Communications, Agilent Technology, PMC Sierra, Fujitsu, and Texas Instruments.
In this newly created position, the company says that Patel will direct its planning and execution of global sales and marketing efforts along with related technology development for advanced solar products.
The appointment is HelioVolt’s second major hire in recent months, following
the naming of former DuPont Photonics executive Louay Eldada
as the company’s chief technology officer in April.
“Haresh shines at building a strategic customer base for new technologies and developing a product roadmap to fit, ideal expertise as we prepare to bring our first thin-film products to market next year,” said HelioVolt’s CEO/founder BJ Stanbery. “Assessing the enormity of the global energy market and the undeniable need for better, cleaner solutions, I am confident that Haresh and the rest of HelioVolt’s strong sales and marketing team are up to the task of managing growth and optimizing market adoption.”
“HelioVolt has proven its ability to consistently set and achieve
aggressive technical and business milestones,” added Patel. “That
demonstrated strength in execution will serve HelioVolt well as we
focus our efforts on meeting market needs and getting a new generation
of solar energy products onto the buildings of customers worldwide.”
Before joining HelioVolt, Patel was senior vice president of sales and
marketing at WJ Communications, where he drove growth for the company’s
RFID and wireless infrastructure product lines. Before that, he served
as vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Agilent’s
semiconductor products group. Patel holds an executive MBA from
Stanford Business School and a BS in electrical engineering from the
University of Notre Dame.
The company’s suite of soon-to-be-marketed high-performance CIGS TFPV modules and next-generation building-integrated PV products are based on its proprietary rapid FASST manufacturing process, which has been shown to produce integrated solar devices of >12% conversion efficiency in six minutes.
HelioVolt is ramping its first 20-MW CIGS production line in Austin, TX, and will be holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the factory on Oct. 24.
— TC
