PROJECT EASY GREEN

In September of last year, JDSU, the optical networking, laser and coatings expert, announced that they were entering the CPV market as a chip supplier. Today they acquired the assets of U.K.-based CPV chip startup QuantaSol. JDSU (NASDAQ: JDSU and TSX: JDU) plans to leverage QuantaSol’s multiple quantum well (MQW) technology for its CPV product platform, a technology with the potential to improve cell efficiency.

QuantaSol's investors include Imperial Innovations and Low Carbon Accelerator. The acquisition price was not disclosed and it can be assumed that it was not a windfall for the investors (Update: the price was $638,000 with possible additional payments).

The CPV market has seen a run of financing in the last few weeks; $16.5 million for Morgan Solar, $20 million for Semprius, and $17 million for Greenvolts; all aspiring systems vendors are trailing leaders SolFocus, Amonix, and Soitec.

One of the chicken-and-egg problems that has long plagued CPV is the cost and supply of the triple-junction compound semiconductor solar cell that performs the actual photovoltaic conversion. The low-volume supply chain for these chips has depended on somewhat dysfunctional suppliers Emcore and Spectrolab.  Emcore has a history of losing money, questionable management and flirting with entering the CPV system business. Spectrolab makes a quality product, but both of these firms, with a history of supplying the space and satellite market, have found the transition to commercial manufacturing a bit of a cultural stretch.

A few VC-funded startups — Solar Junction, Cyrium and QuantaSol — are aiming to provide chips to the system vendors.  But the market remains relatively low volume and has not taken off like the flat solar panel market with its massive volumes and plunging prices.

We have long claimed that if the CPV market ever did start to take off, larger semiconductor vendors would take notice and follow with their III/V material chip entries.  We had suggested that a fitting candidate could be an LED supplier, as a triple-junction solar cell is approximately a reverse LED.  But JDSU's entry, with its distinctive optical pedigree in lasers from a long-ago acquisition of SDL, makes a certain amount of sense.

I spoke with Jan Gustav-Werthen, the Director of JDSU's photovoltaic group, about the acquisition.

Werthen said in a previous interview, "We aim to be number-one cell supplier in the world. If we didn't think we could be number one, we wouldn't enter the market."  Werthen spoke of JDSU's "vast and deep" experience in III/V semiconductors and their internal capacity and strength in epitaxial growth for their lasers.

Werthen expects that the CPV business "will be taking off in 2011 and 2012 and will be a substantial business by 2020."  He foresees 30 percent module efficiency on the horizon, with cell efficiencies increasing at about one percent per year. Cell efficiencies eventually will be in the 50 percent range.

Multiple quantum wells have been used in laser diodes for decades; it is a technology with which JDSU is very familiar. In an interview this morning, Werthen said he demonstrate cell efficiency improving from 39 percent to 41 percent in less than a year.  

It remains to be seen if JDSU can help enable the CPV market with innovation or cost savings.

JDSU has a market capitalization of $3.85 billion.

GTM Research's in-depth CPV market forecast is here.

Semprius, a developer of concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems, raised $20 million of a $30 million venture round led by Siemens Venture Capital along with existing investors Arch Venture Partners, Applied Ventures, Illinois Ventures, Intersouth Partners, In-Q-Tel, and GVC Investment as per SEC documents.

The funding will go to establish a 5 megawatt pilot plant expandable to 35 megawatts, according to the company in an email statement to Bloomberg.  Siemens owns a 16.1 percent stake in Semprius.

Semprius has a core semiconductor technology the firm believes can make CPV more competitive.

Semprius and the CPV industry has its work cut out for it.  The flat plate photovoltiacs (PV) industry has grown at a compound annual rate of about 41 percent per year for the last decade to reach its current 2011 shipment pace of 20 gigawatts. And the price of c-Si solar continues to fall every calender quarter. GTM Research has recently published a detailed analysis and forecast on the CPV market.

Still, CPV has shown some life of late — led by Amonix, Soitec, and SolFocus winning utility-scale contracts in high-DNI regions.

Ben Kortlang, a partner at Kleiner Perkins and investor in Amonix, claimed that CPV from Amonix, "is cheaper than First Solar."  First Solar is currently at about $0.75 per watt with their thin-film solar panels, so those are bold words from KP.

Spun out of the University of Illinois and founded in 2005, Semprius raised a $4.7 million round A in 2007 and won an additional $7.9 million round in 2009.

The 30-employee firm aspires to be a vertically integrated manufacturer of high-concentration PV panels using their own gallium arsenide (GaAs) micro transfer printing-based chips while selling the panels to system integrators for mounting on 2-axis trackers.

Semprius does its own cell design and outsources the epi.  Their micro transfer printing technology allows the firm to reuse the GaAs substrate rather than shipping the expensive substrate out the door with every cell.  Semprius claims that by reusing the substrate, they can reduce the cost by fifty percent.  The cell structure is grown on top of a release layer so that the cells can be epitaxially lifted off as part of the micro-transfer printing process.