Solar

It's official. First Solar is the Google of solar companies.

The Phoenix, Ariz.-based maker of cadmium telluride solar cells and panels has soared past the $200 a share mark. It was up to $230 today and is currently trading at about $219.

Remarkably, First Solar had an initial public offering in the middle of November 2006. The stock went out at $20 a share, so effectively, it has gone up in value by 11 times in a little less than a year. Google went out at $85 a few years ago and is now above $700. The numbers … Read more

In two years, tourists will likely be traveling to Alcatraz on green energy.

Australia's Solar Sailor has come up with a way to make large solar panels that can also act like sails. Put one or more of the sails on a boat and the boat gets converted into a hybrid. The boat still has a diesel engine, but it mostly gets around on wind or sun power. A tour boat in Sydney Harbor has an array of eight small solar sails.

"It makes three runs a day and uses 1/10th of the fuel," says CEO … Read more

First Solar, those cadmium telluride oddballs, is on the move again.

The company said this week that it has signed a deal to supply Babcock & Brown with solar modules in a deal that will bring it a $1 billion in revenue between 2008 and 2009. Overall, First has contracts to install over 3 gigawatts of power through 2012.

To meet demand for the project, the company's board has approved a fourth manufacturing plant in Malaysia. Two are under construction, and the company announced a third manufacturing plant in April. Each plant will have four manufacturing lines. When up … Read more

Pacific Gas and Electric has entered into a contract to buy 177 megawatts of power from a solar thermal power plant that will be built by Ausra.

The power plant will be located in San Luis Obispo county in central California and provide, roughly, enough power for 60,000 homes. Ausra has filed applications to build the plant with the California Energy Commission and hopes to have the plant up and generating power in 2010.

This won't be the last solar thermal contract PG&E will sign. PG&E says it plans to get a gigawatt worth of power from solar thermal systems in five years. … Read more

Update: Suntech Power Holdings, an aggressive, rising star in the solar world, said in a conference call yesterday that it hopes to build plants in the U.S. to help it break into the market here.

"We are currently in discussion with the governors of three different states who have been recruiting us to build factories," said Roger Efird, president of Suntech America, the company's U.S. subsidiary, according to a report on Greentech Media. Efird was speaking on a conference call for the Solar Energy Industries Association. More details will likely emerge on November 15 when … Read more

I'm a big fan of solar power. But as with anything, I like to know exactly what I'm getting. One of the big unspoken issues in the solar sector is the difference between the rated or estimated potential output of a solar system--and the actual production of kilowatt-hours. A range of factors from the margin of error in the modules, to temperature, dust and losses from wiring, conversion to AC power and any batteries all can contribute to as much as 30 percent lower actual power production--even in the first year.

Compounding this problem in my mind is … Read more

In 1899 economist/sociologist Thorstein Veblen introduced the term Conspicuous Consumption to describe what he believed to be the evils of wealth accumulation in the nouveau riche upper class of the Gilded Age (Veblen was not exactly a "right wing" economist). You can best think of Conspicuous Consumption today as the notion that consumerism and "keeping up with the Joneses" drives economics.

One of my friends, Helen Priest from Meridian Energy, coined a new version of the term this week--conspicuous sustainability. She is here from New Zealand's largest (and all green) power company visiting Silicon … Read more

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Give up? They are all among the largest producers of solar modules. And recently Honda and Applied Materials have entered the solar business as well.

If you are a renewable energy fan, you have to get excited when large semiconductor equipment experts like Applied Materials get in the game.

But the most recent prospective entrant (which I have blogged about) is IBM. Big Blue's program is still under wraps, but it has worked on solar technology in its research arm since the 1970s and has massive expertise in … Read more

The green-tech sector is getting hot for stock investments these days, in part because of some very hot recent solar IPOs, such as that of First Solar. As with everything, personal investors need to do their homework. Here's a few places to get started.

I follow three Web sites (and have occasionally written for or been interviewed by each of them) catering to investors in the energy and green-tech sector.

RenewableEnergyStocks.com is a content-rich site run by financial public-relations firm Investor Ideas, a subsidiary of Econ Corporate Services. Since the company is typically paid by the companies, you … Read more