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March 03, 2006
Industrial strength solar energy gets some Good Energies cash
One year old Concentrix Solar GmbH announced this week raising its first round of finance from Swiss investment company, Good Energies. Until now Concentrix, a spinoff of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg, Germany, has been producing only demo volumes. The new capital will enable it to start shipping its heavy duty solar cell product line in late 2006.
A Concentrix view of the power plant of the near future. It sure beats looking at oil spills on Spanish and North American beaches.
Concentrix makes concentrator photovoltaic (PV) cells that use Fresnel lenses to concentrate light onto advanced semiconductos
The startups' PV cells use so-called III-V semiconductor materials, typically used in high brightness light emitting diodes (LED) and high frequency radio chips. Its PVs are capable of harnessing more power from solar radiation than existing solar cells and are targeted at large power generating plants with capacities ranging from 100 kilowatt to 1 megawatt. It could be even greater amounts of wattage, the company claims
As we’ve mentioned before, the solar sector is booming in this part of Europe, particularly Germany. Publicly traded firms’ stock prices are up, and VCs, the few that invest in the sector, are benefiting. Apax Partners recently generated stellar returns on its investment in Q-Cells when the firm went public last year.
A subsidiary of Cofra (the Brenninkmeijer family holding company), we find Good Energies an interesting investor in the sector, and not just because it is based in Switzerland. It has a €144M portfolio of six PV firms, built up since 2002, and was also an early investor in Q-Cells.
A while ago we interviewed a Good Energies executive and we were struck by the approach. It is different to those of venture capital funds targeting the sector. First of all the investment vehicle is highly specialized, solar cells only, and it is longer term.
Since Good Energies is investing a small part of a vast family fortune, it can afford to invest ahead of the market, and despite the short term returns generated with investment like Q-Cells, this investor is looking much further down the road.
“It’s the world’s longest S-curve,“ said the executive. He then added: “I see solar energy peaking in 2040.”
Now that is a long term view.
The market forecast for PVs translates into the world's longest S-curve. (Click to enlarge)
Read - Concentrix Solar GmbH completes financing
Posted on March 3, 2006 05:57 AM | Posted to Alternative Energy | Permalink
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