SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Solexant Corp., a leader in advanced solar energy, today announced a new corporate identity as Siva Power. The new identity is the culmination of a two-year transition to a platform that creates a profitable path to sub-$0.40 per watt solar power, along with unprecedented production scale. The company also announced a new website (www.sivapower.com), and a powerful technical advisory board.

"Unlike silicon photovoltaics (PV), our new approach provides a pathway to building the solar industry's 'factory of the future' with gigawatt production capacity, and the world's lowest cost in solar," said company CEO Brad Mattson. "Two years of data-driven research and analysis has led us to pursue a co-evaporated CIGS via monolithic integration on glass technology."

Drawing upon Mattson's past success in scaling new semiconductor technologies through process, equipment and materials innovation, the company cancelled its expansion plan to build a 100MW CdTe production line in Oregon, and instead tripled its R&D budget with a goal of investigating new technologies that offered much lower cost production. After investigating several promising solar technologies including GaAs, InP, CZTS, CdTe and CIGS, Siva determined that CIGS technology was the only viable path to less than $0.40/watt.

Siva Power has completed its R&D phase and is raising money to build its first production line.  At a massive 300MW, this facility is larger than any other full production line by a factor of three times other thin film lines and 10 times typical silicon lines.

CIGS is emerging as the best technology for the future. In the United States, the Department of Energy anointed CIGS as the technology of the future, creating the PV Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC) dedicated to accelerating CIGS transition from R&D to manufacturing. Solar manufacturing leaders in China, meanwhile, have shown increased confidence in the technology as well, recently acquiring three CIGS companies.  Solar Frontier in Japan has also become the world leader in CIGS and second only to First Solar in thin film production.

To capitalize on the growing consolidation around CIGS, Siva Power hired one of the most renowned CIGS technologist, Dr. Markus E. Beck, as CTO earlier this year. Building on that foundation, Siva Power has formed a Technical Advisory Board and added two of the world's most renowned CIGS and PV experts. 

Besides Beck, the new advisory board members include Dr. Rommel Noufi and Dr. John Benner.

• Dr. Rommel Noufi is a pioneer in thin film solar cells and in particular CIGS.  Dr. Noufi spent over 33 years at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) dedicated to the advancement of PV and CIGS technology. His leading work in co-evaporation techniques led to a deep understanding of the basic technology and several world-record CIGS devices.
• Dr. John Benner, a 33 year veteran of NREL, focused on PV technology is now Executive Director of the BAPVC, or Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium, the west coast counterpart to PVMC. The BAPVC, working out of Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley, is investigating advanced techniques in CIGS along with many other PV technologies.

"It has been frustrating to see CIGS technology breaking efficiency records for many years, but not see that technical success translate into success in the commercial arena," said Dr. Noufi.  "In Siva Power I see the technology, the team, and the technical and business leadership to bring CIGS to the scale it deserves. I'm excited to become an advisor to Siva and to help steer CIGS into the future."

About Siva Power

Siva Power is a leader in advanced solar device and manufacturing technology. It is developing a solar factory built for the "gigawatt era", with the goal of attaining the lowest production cost in the world.  The company's thin-film photovoltaic solar panels, using copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), combine innovations in equipment, materials and process to achieve high efficiency at unprecedented scale. For more information, visit www.sivapower.com.

SOURCE Siva Power