Miasolé secures "significant" funding round

US-based thin film solar cell firm Miasolé has completed a major funding round designed to help it ramp up manufacturing capacity and bolster commercialisation efforts.

Reports last month claimed the company was close to finalising an investment of between $200m and $220m, and speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Yoni Alemu of investment firm and Miasolé backer Leaf Clean Energy confirmed the firm had this week completed a funding round that was "significantly" larger than the $50m it raised last year.

Miasolé is one of a triumvirate of firms including Heliovolt and Nanosolar racing to commercialise thin film Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) solar cells. Advocates of the technology claim it has the potential to deliver higher efficiency rates and lower production costs than conventional silicon based cells.

The company has had an eventful 12 months that saw it replace its chief executive and lay off some workers late last year, but Alemu insisted that the firm is is now well positioned to take advantage of growing demand for thin film solar panels.

"The issues last year were with operation, rather than technology," he said. "Those issues have been sorted and the company is now streamlined and focused on what it needs to do – there was a lot of interest in this investment round."

The fresh funding comes a month after the company announced that the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory had verified its claims that its cells were now exceeding 10 per cent efficiency.

Speaking at the time, chief executive Joe Laia heralded the verified test results as a major breakthrough. "This demonstrates our ability to consistently produce high-efficiency CIGS modules on production equipment," he said. "The ability to move from making CIGS on pilot lines and small lab champion cells to manufacturing modules in a production environment is challenging, and this is independent verification that we have achieved that. This is a critical step on our path to producing low cost solar modules in high volume."

Alemu said that the company would now use the new funding round to finalise the technical development of its products and begin ramping up manufacturing capacity.