The sixth annual Intersolar North American trade show took place in San Francisco last month. During the three- day trade show, one of the biggest in the US, a number of solar-industry start-ups funded by venture capital (VC) emerged from “stealth mode”.
Solar has been a notorious sink of VC in recent years, and as the trade show took place, printed thin-film solar developer Nanosolar began in earnest to seek a buyer for its technology and tools after consuming a startling $400m in funding. The auction is set for August 13. During its struggle to market, Nanosolar had managed to ship only a paltry 50MW of solar panels since 2002, an extremely poor result and an extremely poor outcome for investors. The company, which once had valued itself at $2.1bn, is now thought by some analysts to be worth less than $50m.
However, despite these failures – and the shadow of high-profile failure Solyndra casting a tall shadow on the emergence of any solar start-up – VC-backed firms con- tinue to introduce innovative new approaches and prod- ucts into the solar market. The Intersolar North America trade show also continues to be a focal point for such firms, with its proximity to Silicon Valley making it ideal for start-ups wanting to introduce their new technologies to the global stage without leaving their backyard.
New PV cell technologies
One such firm was San Jose-based Scifiniti. The start-up is hoping to be a manufacturer and supplier of low-cost silicon wafers, which form the basis of around 90% of solar panels on the market today. Scifiniti’s approach differs from those in scale production today in
that it employs a gas-to-wafer technology, for the deposition of the semiconductor layer. Known as kerfless wafering, the approach uses significantly less silicon than standard technologies.
Scifiniti chairman and chief executive Sharone Zehavi said its technology, SmartWafer, uses 0.5grams per watt (g/W) per wafer, as opposed to 5g/W in standard processes. While this is a major material saving, prices for the polysilicon used in the solar photovoltaic (PV) indus- try have crashed in recent years, making silicon saving a lesser priority than it once was. However, with intense price competition among manufacturers of solar modules, savings are welcome wherever they appear.
Another advantage of the SmartWafers, which is bound to have caught the eye of panel manufacturers, is that the wafers can be used in standard module-production processes. With cashflows tight within PV, circumvent- ing the need to purchase new tools in production lines would appear to be a prerequisite for new technologies. As such, the Scifiniti wafer is a “drop-in product” in PV panel manufacturing.
Scifiniti came out of stealth mode 10 days before the Intersolar North America show and is a spin-off from a semi- conductor player. It has been funded by four VC partners, Alloy Ventures, Firelake Capital, I2BF Global Ventures and Peninsula Ventures, over two and a half years and has filed for more than 20 patents across a range of processes related to the wafer manufacturer. The firm is looking for a partner to build a facility to manufacturer its cells, possibly in the US or in Asia – “but probably not in California” laughs Zehavi. A factory would require $14m in investment with an earnings break-even at 200MW capacity, claims Zehavi.