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The DOE hasn’t update their funding reports for several days, but, the big news is that compared to last week, the amount of funding available has surpassed $10 billion, growing by roughly $340 million.

The combined DOE and NSF payouts have also crossed something of a threshold: Finally, more than $.5 billion in has been distributed.

Don’t forget - vote in our poll on when DOE will cross the $1 billion mark.

In regard to funding activities at the DOE, here’s the what happened this week:

• $21 million for biofuels projects
• $500 miillion in clean energy projects
• $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra “finalized.”

Department of Energy (4.8% paid out):

National Science Foundation (1.2% paid out):

Source: Recovery.gov

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The DOE promised to act fast in distributing its stimulus monies and it is. It’s been announced that one of the first offers is going to Solyndra, a Fremont, Calif., company with a maverick technology I profiled back in October. A $535 million guarantee will allow the company to obtain lower-than-market financing to expand its production of photovoltaic “panels” by opening a second production plant in California. “Fab 2,” as the new plant is called, is expected to have an annual manufacturing capacity of 500 megawatts per year.

As for the economic stimulus part of the deal, Solyndra says in a press release that, “[C]onstruction of this complex will employ approximately 3,000 people, the operation of the facility will create over 1,000 jobs, and hundreds of additional jobs will be created for the installation of Solyndra PV systems, in the U.S.” Actually, Solyndra’s units are markedly different than other PV units, with a tubular shape that allows each cylinder to collect sunlight from any angle. A coating within the tubes contains the light-sensitive material. By painting a surrounding roof white, the cylinders are capable of capturing reflected sunlight from their “down” side. The tubes also are more tolerant than PV panels when it comes to installation arrangements. Flat panels must be precisely angled with devices that add cost and time, and they must be anchored by ballast or “rooftop penetration” to meet wind-loading requirements. In contrast, Solyndra’s solar tubes can be laid beside each other in straight lines across a roof with minimal rooftop anchoring.

The company says installation costs can be cut in half. Solyndra tubes are made from a less expensive thin-film of semiconductor material. This material - comprised of copper, indium, gallium and selenium - is deposited on a glass tube, which is nested inside another glass tube. The outer tube concentrates sunlight and protects the solar film on the inside tube. See this post for a video of Solyndra’s manufacturing techniques. Under the previous administration, the loan guarantee program got stuck in a horrendous bureaucracy that was so FUBARed that proposals had been sitting for years. New DOE Secretary Chu promised to cut the application approval process to months and cut the application, itself, to less than 50 pages. Chu deserves a nod to sticking to his promise, and so does the DOE for taking a risk with a firm leveraging nontraditional but proven PV technology (and I don’t mean to imply that there is anything wrong with providing loan guarantees to traditional PV panel makers, either).

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We know from watching the blog post traffic that the post last week about the Solyndra’s cylindrical photovoltaic system was popular. Today, we offer a short video from Solyndra that illustrates some of the production (very robotic) and installation techniques.

[flashvideo filename=wp-content/video/Solyndra2.flv /]

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Cylindrical solar tubes from Solyndra.

Business is beginning to take shape at Solyndra, and the shape it’s taking is tubular. The Fremont, Calif.-based solar power manufacturer began selling its novel cylindrical-shaped solar tubes in July ‘08 and, according to CEO Chris Gronet, the firm already has racked up $1.2 billion in contracted orders. The differences between Solyndra’s solar tubes and conventional solar panels are many. The obvious difference is their shape. Unlike conventional solar flat panels, a single Solyndra “panel” is comprised of 40 glass cylinders placed horizontally side-by-side. Their tubular shape allows each cylinder to collect sunlight from any angle, the company says.

By painting a roof white, the firm even enables cylinders to capture reflected sunlight from their “down” side. Differences also occur in installation. Traditional solar flat panels must be precisely angled with devices that add cost and time, a Solyndra press release explains. It also claims exact spacing must be provided between panels so they don’t obstruct each other’s performance, and they must be anchored by ballast or “rooftop penetration” to meet wind-loading requirements. In contrast, Solyndra’s solar tubes can be laid beside each other in straight lines across a roof. Angling and extra spacing isn’t necessary and, because the wind blows around and through Solyndra panels, the need for rooftop anchoring is also reduced.

All this adds up to a Solyndra installation costing about half that of a regular flat-panel installation, Solyndra CEO Gronet says. Another major difference between the solar alternatives is in the way they are manufactured. While traditional flat panels are assembled from photovoltaic cells made from silicon, Solyndra tubes are made from a less expensive thin-film of semiconductor material. This material - comprised of copper, indium, gallium and selenium - is deposited on a glass tube, which is nested inside another glass tube. The outer tube concentrates sunlight and protects the solar film on the inside tube. Finally, unlike most traditional solar-panel makers, Solyndra’s management is not targeting the residential market. Instead, Solyndra’s solar tubes are being sold through installers exclusively to the commercial rooftop market. Gronet figures this market adds up to about 30 billion square feet of warehouse, supermarket, factory and other commercial rooftop space in the U.S. alone.

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