AVA Solar joins thin film funding party

On the same day as Nanosolar revealed it has raked in $300m of funding, rival cell manufacturer AVA Solar announced it was not about to miss out on the thin film investment gold rush, confirming it has raised $104m through its second round of financing.

AVA Solar chief executive Pascal Noronha said the company would use the funding to complete its planned 200MW production facility in Colorado, adding that it would aim to ship panels from next year.

The funding round was led by DCM and included news investors in the form of Technology Partners, GLG Partners and Bohemian Companies, LLC.

AVA Solar forms part of the raft of thin film solar firms to attract big money backing in recent months, joining Nanosolar, Optisolar, Heliovolt, Miasole and German outfit Sulfurcell.

However, unlike many of its peers, AVA Solar's technology is based on a type of semiconductor called cadmium telluride rather than the more popular copper-indium-gallium-selenide, or CIGS, technology.

Cadmium telluride, which is deposited onto glass to make solar panels, is widely regarded as being more difficult to handle than CIGS, but it is also favoured by industry giant First Solar and AVA's Noronha is confident that the company can produce extremely cost competitive panels at less than one dollar a watt.

In related news, polycrystalline solar cell giant Suntech Power Holdings has followed up its recent $100m polysilicon supply deal with Nitol Solar with a further supply agreement with GCL Silicon Technology Holdings Inc.

Under the terms of the deal, GCL Silicon will supply Suntech with 9,420 tonnes of polysilicon and 1.1 gigawatts (GW) of silicon wafers from 2008 to 2012.