Washington to pump more money into solar start-ups

June 25, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

solarpower.bmpThe Department of Energy has awarded $27 million to fund 10 start-ups active in producing solar power technology, provided they continue to meet certain milestones.

The goal is support these start-ups as they develop photovoltaic technologies that are more efficient than incumbent processes. These methods are more expensive in early stages because they don’t have economies of scale. Once in production, however, they promise to reduce the cost per watt for solar power. That cost is the main barrier to wider adoption of solar.

Recipients include Maryland’s Blue Square Energy, Menlo Park, Calif.’s CaliSolar, Sunnyvale, Calif.’s Enfocus Engineering, Illinois’ MicroLink Devices (web site is down), Palo Alto, Calif.’s SolFocus Inc., Fremont, Calif.’s Solaria, Colorado’s Ava Solar, Pennsylvania’s Plextronics, Colorado’s PrimeStar Solar. and Milpitas, Calif.’s SoloPower.

Each will receive $2 million to $3 million.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • "Once in production ..." And a synonym for "production": "China." See http://tinyurl.com/2g3lr5 as one example of how the winners will win.
  • I could not help but notice that small start-ups in "Solar Thermal (solar hot water)" are not yet being backed; even though the technology is less costly to the consumer, more efficient for many apllications and most of the current solar thermal technology is being imported.
    By replacing four traditional hot water heaters with solar hot water heating systems you effectivly remove the emmissions of one automobile from the air.

    Dirk Atkinson
    CEO TrendSetter Solar Products, Inc.(TSSP)