US to give $197m to solar panel start-up

LOS ANGELES: A tiny solar company named SoloPower will flip the switch on production at a United States factory on Thursday, a major step toward allowing it to tap a $197m government loan guarantee awarded under the same controversial program that supported failed panel maker Solyndra.
Reuters reported that SoloPower has initiated a strategy to differentiate it from struggling commodity players in the solar panel industry. Still, there are several similarities between SoloPower and Solyndra – which became a lightning rod in the US Presidential campaign this year after taking in more than $500m in government loans and then filing for bankruptcy.
Like Solyndra, SoloPower is a Silicon Valley start-up and uses the same non-traditional raw material in its solar panels. And, like its now-defunct peer, SoloPower is one of just four US panel manufacturers to clinch loan guarantees under the Department of Energy’s $35bn program to support emerging clean energy technologies. The DOE payments to SoloPower will come on top of the $56.5m SoloPower has collected in loans, tax credits and incentives from the state of Oregon and the city of Portland, where its first factory will be located.
And, perhaps most importantly, SoloPower is entering the market at a time of cutthroat competition from cheaper solar products made in China.
Though global demand for photovoltaic solar installations is expected to grow about eight per cent this year, rapid expansion of panel manufacturing in Asia in recent years — combined with a pullback in government incentives in key European markets — has left a glut of solar panels in the market, sending prices down 30 per cent this year alone.
Companies that make those panels are now struggling to survive. Even the world’s largest solar panel maker, China’s Suntech Power Holdings Incorporated, warned on Friday that it may be delisted by the New York Stock Exchange because its share price, which reached $90 in 2008, is now less than $1.