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First Solar president at PHOTON’s Start-up Conference: »Second solar is upon us«
December, 2008: Bruce Sohn, president of US-based First Solar Inc., opened PHOTON’s three-day conference series "Searching for the Second Solar" in San Francisco, California, on Dec. 2 by recounting the challenges the company encountered on its path from venture capital-funded start-up into arguably one of the solar industry’s greatest success stories.
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© photon-pictures.com
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Standard-bearer: Bruce Sohn, president of First Solar Inc.
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“In the early days we spent more time maintaining and fixing our equipment than operating it,” recalled Sohn in his keynote speech to more than 200 attendees at PHOTON’s 1st Start-up Conference. First Solar, whose cadmium telluride-based thin-film technology development dates back to the mid-1980s, was founded in 1999. After fighting through the usual hiccups afflicting all start-ups in their initial growth phase, it was only a little more than three years ago that First Solar reached the cost, performance and reliability targets which enabled it to enter truly mass production and begin supplying product to the multi-billion dollar global solar market. Today, the company is both the world’s lowest-cost solar PV producer and the industry’s largest thin-film module maker.
“First Solar’s story is the story of hard work,” Sohn told attendees at the conference. “It is First Solar’s story. It is not a recipe,” he added. Although Sohn has “no doubt” that today’s fledgling companies “will be littered with designs that don’t work,” he also believes, “The second solar is already upon us.” Which company that might be, Sohn wouldn’t say.
But the first day of the conference series featured presentations from several “Second Solar” hopefuls. Among others, these included MIT spin-off 1366 Technologies Inc., which claims it can boost the sunlight conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon cells without increasing the cost of manufacturing; CaliSolar, which seeks to build a PV cell business based on low-cost upgraded metallurgical silicon feedstock; Suniva Inc., which relies on traditional screen-printing techniques to make high-efficiency monocrystalline cells; and silicon thick-film developers Crystal Solar and Nanogram Corp.
Given the economic crisis, the road may not be easy for such companies if they currently need to raise cash. “If you don’t have to raise capital now, then don’t,” advised Jeffrey Grabow from Ernst & Young in an overview of VC flow into PV companies. While the crisis “doesn’t mean you can’t raise money, it is going to be a lot more difficult in the near term,” projected Grabow.
Nevertheless, he noted, many Silicon Valley investors believe, “A recession is the best time to start a company.” The numbers support that belief: after investing under $800 million in 2007, venture capitalists invested $1.7 billion into solar in the first three quarters of 2008. Obviously, no one wants to miss the next First Solar.
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