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When Global Solar was trying to interest the US Marines in its CIS technology for mobile purposes, the Arizona-based company demonstrated the Portable Power Pack product by letting soldiers shoot holes through it. The loss of efficiency was negligible, and the deal was done. One year later, with a Department of Defense contract in hand (and scouting for more contracts with more foreign military forces), Global wants to take on the battle to triple its production capacity by the end of the year and capture 15 percent of the PV market within five years. These surprising statistics come from a presentation by Neil Holstad, Global’s vice-president and chief financial officer, to investors at the »E-lectricity Conference« in New York City sponsored by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. at the end of February. The first goal of tripling capacity should be easy since, as even Holstad admits, the company has practically no CIS going yet. There is only one pilot line, which Holstad hopes to get up to a capacity of 2 MW by year’s end, with the ability to produce 1.5 MW. The more amazing claim is the desire to capture a 15 percent market share within five years. Using current levels of total solar cell production of around 200 MW (which will probably at least double within the next five years), Global would have to be producing – and selling – about 30 MW per year to fulfill its dream. When asked about this, Holstad agreed it wouldn’t be simple. »It would require adding many, many, many, many production lines,« he admits. That it would also require a lot of investment doesn’t phase Holstad. There is talk about raising money on the public equity market, although nothing is concrete. Still, he thinks Global is on to something big with its lightweight, flexible CIS technology. As he sees it, the real difficulty is that getting the fabrication up to speed could be »complicated by the fact that there has never been a production line like this before.« The modules are still awaiting UL listing accreditation. And yet he remains confident that not only can the production kinks be worked out but that the marketing of the 1000-foot rolls with a one-foot width will go smoothly as the flexible technology finds markets no one else is looking at. He doesn’t want to say what the markets might be as that would only help the competition by »throwing sugar for the ants,« as he puts it. He also refuses to reveal what the actual efficiency is. All he will say is that Global’s target for the modules is eight percent. Any real answer as to whether Global will be able capture a 15 percent will only be known in five years. www.globalsolar.com
(coming spring 2000) William
P. Hirshman
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