PHOTON International The Photovoltaic Magazine

PowerLight to set up LA factory and to increase capacity to 20 MW by April

In early December, PowerLight Corp. announced plans to increase its production capacity to 20 MW by the end of the spring. Shortly thereafter, PHOTON International learned that the Berkeley, California-based manufacturer of roof products for large PV systems has also decided to set up a factory in Los Angeles.

	© PowerLight Corp.
Busy below: Beneath the 100 kW rooftop at PowerLight’s Berkeley factory, the sun never sets.

According to Angelina Galiteva, director of strategic planning at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), PowerLight is moving to take advantage of the municipal utility’s $6 USD per watt buydown for customers who install PV products manufactured in the city. The LADWP’s Solar Incentive Program recently increased these rebates from $5 to $6 per watt (see PI 10/2001, p. 28); customers get only $4.50 for products manufactured outside the city limits. PowerLight’s new factory, which will be formally announced at the beginning of February, will be placed next to the Siemens Solar module assembly facility in LA and will incorporate those modules into its PowerGuard roof tiles. In Feb. 2001, Siemens agreed to set up a 5 MW capacity module facility to take advantage of the LADWP local industry bonus (see PI 3/2001, p. 18). But when delays in opening the LA site threatened Siemens’ ability to exploit the buydown, LADWP agreed to allow the company, which produces monocrystalline cells and modules in nearby Camarillo, to still get the $6 rebate in return for an increase of LA production during the first three months of this year. Galiteva says Siemens’ current LA production is about 2.5 MW.

In addition, PowerLight has moved to three shifts and will be adding manufacturing equipment to increase its capacity to 20 MW a year. The Berkeley, California-based manufacturer and systems integrator produces the PowerGuard, a lightweight insulating roof tile to which PV modules are attached. A second factory will be set up in Los Angeles by early February. The announcement was made at PowerLight’s ten-year anniversary celebration on Dec. 12. Janice Lin, vice president of business development, says the company’s current capacity for turnkey systems is 12 MW, but she would not disclose how much was actually produced in 2001. »Let’s just say the main reason we’re expanding is because we need it,« she comments. The upgrade to PowerLight’s production line, which will include new custom-made equipment and the hiring of new staff, should be finished by the end of the first quarter. Lin declined to specify what pieces of machinery were to be installed, saying they are proprietary. A portion of the manufacturing improvements was co-funded by a grant of $500,000 from the US Department of Energy under its Photovoltaic Manufacturing Technology program (PVMaT).

The increase in production capacity is timely. At the beginning of December, Alemeda County, California, which installed a 640 kW PowerLight system on its Santa Rita Jail last June, commissioned the company to add another 500 kW. The system for the jail uses BP Solar and AstroPower modules. When completed in the spring, Lin says the 1.14 MW system will be the country’s largest rooftop installation. In November, PowerLight announced that Cypress Seminconductor, a large Silicon Valley integrated circuits firm, had engaged PowerLight to design, manufacture, and install a 335 kW system on its new headquarters building in San Jose, using Siemens Solar modules. Both installations will take advantage of rebates and incentives offered by the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). wph