Picasolar Announces $4 million Investment In Solar Technology

Picasolar Inc. is investing $4 million to determine whether its technology to develop more efficient and less expensive solar panels can be mass produced. The Fayetteville-based solar startup plans for solar panel manufacturers to use the new technology by mid-2017.

The U.S. Department of Energy is providing $2 million of the investment as a SunShot Tier 2 Incubator award, and the other $2 million is a matching investment from Picasolar. CEO Douglas Hutchings announced the investments in the lobby of the company’s headquarters at Arkansas Research and Technology Park on Wednesday morning.

“Today marks a huge milestone for Picasolar,” Hutchings said. This is the company’s third time to receive a SunShot award, and the company is the first to receive three.

Picasolar has developed solar technology, the hydrogen super emitter, that could improve the efficiency of solar panels by 15 percent and reduce manufacturing costs by 25 percent.

The company is working closely with some of the largest solar panel manufacturers and solar equipment manufacturers, including Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., based in Baoding, China, and Meyer Burger Technology Ltd, based in Thun, Switzerland.

Sergiu Pop, research and development director for Yingli Green Energy Americas Inc., said the success of the project will determine how much priority Yingli places in it and the company’s financial situation as far as its investment into it. Pop, who works at the San Francisco office for the solar panel manufacturer, will manage Yingli’s involvement in the project.

“We are very excited to collaborate with Picasolar,” he said. “We’re going to have a clear advantage over our competition.”

Don Veri, who is in sales and business development for Meyer Burger, said his company looks to provide the equipment used to produce the solar technology.

While the Picasolar lab has a smaller version of the equipment used to produce the new technology, Meyer Burger will provide the means to see if the technology can be mass produced, such as by Yingli.

Veri declined to say how much the equipment costs, but Hutchings said it would be paid for out of a portion of the $4 million investment.