Helivolt

Heliovolt Opened their manufacturing plant in Austin TX on OCtober 24th, 2008, and expects their products to ready for sale in early 2009.

HelioVolt’s FASST™ technology produces high-performance solar thin-film with pioneering time and materials efficiencies. 10 to 100 times faster than current processes. 100 times thinner than traditional silicon. Factor in the flexibility of custom shapes and sizes. Plus easy adaptability to multiple construction materials – glass, steel, metal, composites and some polymers. The result? Another industry revolution is born

• Rapid and revolutionary: Our patented solar “printing” process is a high-speed, large-area method for manufacturing silicon-free thin-film photovoltaics for commercial-scale production. Many times faster than other thin-film technologies, the real advantage of FASST™ is its unique ability to nano-engineer solar thin films.
  
• Flexible and customizable: HelioVolt can print directly onto multiple construction materials – glass, steel, metal, composites and some polymers. Mindful of architectural aesthetics, our method enables customization in a range of shapes and sizes. The market opportunity: a new breed of seamlessly solarized building materials, architectural modules and building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products – what we call PV “power buildings.”

• UPDATED: HelioVolt, a well-financed startup that has been working on its thin-film solar material for the past seven years, is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony today for its first factory in its home city of Austin, Texas. For HelioVolt, production has been a long time coming, but customers will have to wait a bit more before buying the solar gear. The company expects to start selling its solar material in early 2009, so will be switching on its plant shortly in order to make that deadline.
  
  The 122,400-square-foot factory will create around 160 new green jobs, which makes it a point of pride for Austin’s mayor Will Wynn, who called HelioVolt “precisely the type of emerging leader in the global renewable energy industry that this city values.” Austin actually had to fight to get the company to stay in the state, according to local reports, and last year offered HelioVolt incentives equal to 60 percent in property tax abatements for 10 years. The Austin Business Journal quotes HelioVolt CEO BJ Stanbery as saying “From a purely financial perspective, [Austin's] was not the best offer,” but that being close to the company’s engineering was the deciding factor.
  
  The factory will manufacture the first commercial applications of HelioVolt’s thin-film solar material, and will be able to produce solar cells that exceed 12 percent conversion efficiency made out of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) in six minutes. Speedy, but the company has a lot of competition.