Solopower's rumoured $200m funding stokes thin film fire

Thin film solar material producer Solopower has reportedly become the latest solar photovoltaic firm to secure major investment, scoring $200m in funding to expand its manufacturing capacity.

According to reports at VentureWire, the thin film copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) panel will use the funding to build a new 100MW production facility.

A Solopower spokesperson said that the Venturewire story was based on comments made by the company's chief executive last week, but refused to comment on the report and would not confirm whether the deal had taken place.

However, were the deal to go through, a rush for extra manufacturing capacity would be a wise move. According to a report from GreenTech Media, which is a partner of US green think tank the Prometheus Institute, the market for thin film solar material is set to explode in the next few years.

The CIGS process that Solopower currently uses to make its thin film material only contributed six per cent of the total energy capacity supplied by thin film solar last year, compared with amorphous silicon and Cadmium Telluride processes, which contributed almost all of the rest between them.

However, the GreenTech Media report predicts that by 2012, CIGS-based thin film material will represent 32 per cent of the market, stealing much of the capacity from Cadmium Telluride, demand for which is expected to plateau over the next few years. The expected acceleration of demand for CIGS panels is put down to the fact that its conversion efficiency, while still lower than traditional crystalline solar, has been improving fast.

Investors have been pouring money into thin film solar, which promises to be cheaper and more flexible than conventional crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, and which could lead the way to solar panels being integrated more widely into buildings, mobile devices, and even clothes and fabrics.

Last October, Heliovault raised $101m in Series B funding, and last month, Nanosolar announced another funding round of $300m, bringing its total funding to just under $500,000. Meanwhile, Miasolé was also rumoured to be courting a $200m investment. All three companies specialise in CIGS material.