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Tech stocks - Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Nanosolar Opens New Plant In Germany To Help Satisfy $4.1 Billion In Orders

San Jose solar company Nanosolar today announced the official opening of a new solar panel assembly plant in Luckenwalde, Germany. The fully automated plant takes Nanosolar’s cells and puts them into finished panels using innovative manufacturing techniques developed by the company. The plant now has the ability to produce panels 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with a capacity of 640 megawatts if run at this rate.

As many solar companies wonder how to rid themselves of their excess panels due to downturns in the economy and the fluctuating price of silicon, Nanosolar will be keep their new plant busy fulfilling $4.1 billion in orders the company has already agreed to with Beck Energy/Belectric, Beck EDF Energies Nouvelles, AES Solar, juwi, and NextLight amongst others.

According to CEO Martin Roscheisen, the company’s next business goal is to, “Achieve broad based product bankability with commercial banks so our customers can finance projects built with our panels.” As financing in the solar industry continues to be an issue for large and small projects, Mr. Roscheisen appears to have the company’s priorities in order.

Finances shouldn’t be a near term problem for Nanosolar as the company has raised $500 million in private funding from various investors including Benchmark Capital, the Carlyle Group, EDF, AES Solar, and Pierre Omidyar’s fund back in 2008. With over 300 employees, Nanosolar should have plenty of cash, and orders, to ride out the current downturn in the solar panel market.

While Nanosolar has not disclosed the cost of manufacturing its panels, they are proud to disclose that its panels can convert 16.4 percent of the sunlight that hits their panels into electricity. The company’s medium efficiency for the panels is between 11 and 12 percent while the reigning solar panel king First Solar (FSLR:NASDAQ) offers an efficiency rating of 10.9 percent. First Solar has made its mark in the solar industry by inexpensively manufacturing panels at a cost of $0.87 per watt.