THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for October, 2011

First Solar Paid Ousted CEO $30 Million

Rob Gillette, who resigned as chief executive officer of First Solar Inc. this week after boosting production capacity during a slump, collected $29.9 million for his initial 15 months on the job and may be eligible for an $8.9 million severance package.

The world’s biggest maker of thin-film solar panels rewarded Gillette while its shares dropped 60 percent from the day he started in October 2009 through Oct. 24, the day before he stepped down. Gillette’s compensation is at least 19 percent more than what Chevron Corp. CEO John Watson earned over the same period, when the U.S. energy company’s shares gained 54 percent.

First Solar CEO Resigns

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) — Rob Gillette has left First Solar Inc. after almost doubling production capacity during the two years he ran the world’s biggest maker of thin-film solar panels.

“Effective immediately, Rob Gillette is no longer serving as chief executive officer,” the Tempe, Arizona-based company said today in a statement that didn’t give a reason. Chairman and founder Mike Ahearn, 54, was named interim CEO.

With demand and prices for solar panels falling, expanding First Solar’s production may have been the wrong decision, said Paul Leming, an analyst at Ticonderoga Securities LLC in New York. Declining prices also make it unlikely that the company will be seen as a buyout target.

Gillette is the third high-level First Solar executive to leave this year. The company’s president of operations Bruce Sohn stepped down in April and wasn’t replaced. And last month Jens Meyerhoff, president of its utility systems unit, departed.

GE Takes Aim at First Solar with High Efficiency Thin Film Solar Panels

GE looks set to take on First Solar by producing thin film solar panels it claims will convert 14 per cent of sunlight into electricity, which would put them among the most efficient on the market.

The US conglomerate plans to open a new $300m factory in Colorado producing the panels next year which, it says, will produce enough panels per year to power 80,000 homes when commercial shipments begin in 2013.

GE to Build New Thin Film Solar Panel Plant in Colorado

Thin Film Solar Panels Set to Boom

A new study on the global thin-film solar power market has found the technology is set to explode from current levels of around $2.9 billion annually, to $44 billion by 2017.

According to the study from the USA’s Wintergreen Research, a recognition on the part of many governments around the world that solar power is a realistic alternative to fossil fuels in the fight against anthropogenic climate change is driving an interest in solar energy that will elevate global thin-film solar to a $1 trillion market by the middle of 2021.

Susan Eustis, lead author of the “Thin Film Solar Panel and System Market Shares and Forecasts 2011 – 2017″ study, says “grid parity has been reached by thin film solar energy products for many areas of the world. When thin film solar systems are looked at over the 25 year useful life of the systems they provide very attractive payback.”

An advantage of thin-film solar panels is the relative ease and low cost of manufacturing the technology, such as advanced screen-printing and roll-to-roll methods.

Although a glut in world supply of standard crystalline silicon solar panels currently offers all-time low prices – making them an attractive alternative to solar thermal technology in large-scale projects – thin-film solar panels use a fraction of the silicon needed in a convention solar cell, making them even less expensive to produce. However, there is some controversy over the potential risks of thin film modules containing cadmium.