Advent, the hot solar market, and the Silicon Valley cluster

solar

Advent Solar said it has raised $30 million in a third round of venture capital, led by some Silicon Valley active firms, including Battery Ventures and Firelake Capital. The capital is going to be used to build a 25MW manufacturing plant for the company’s emitter “wrap-around” solar modules.

Tip comes from Rob Day, who also points us to a close-up picture of one of these solar modules: Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson’s picture on Flickr. As you know from our previous postings, and the SunPower IPO, solar is pretty damn, well, hot.

While we’re on the topic of clean tech, we’ll refer to another post by Rob, where he points to…

a discussion by Joel Makower of the San Francisco city government’s efforts to help promote a clean energy cluster in the area. Yes, Rob, we take note: There is a cluster building here. It is clear that Mayor Gavin Newsom is leading on this front. Mayor Ron Gonzales down in Silicon Valley’s southern city, San Jose, has been slow, however. He initially rejected some ambitious goals to clean up the environment, although lately has appeared to come back around.

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