One of the “heavy hitters” at Solar Power 2008 was Applied Materials. With a rather pimped out exhibition booth, they displayed their "Sun Fab" turnkey (sort of) production equipment. With a room full of installers, people were a little confused that they didn’t exactly SELL the panels, but they sold the equipment to MAKE the panels. "Wait, so I can’t buy panels from you? No but I want those panels, you make them, right? No? What do you do? Huh?"

As a worldwide company that focuses on their trademarked "Nanomanufacturing Technology", their primary bread and butter is in the equipment, service, and software products for semiconducters and flat panel displays, but they’ve been getting heavy into the solar industry. "Sun Fab" is all about driving costs down through a more intelligent, automated manufacturing equpment line that produces modules that are easier to install on a large scale.

I love that companies are thinking of the type of production we’ll need to sustain this industry once it scales up. If every building required solar in some shape or form, the need to continuously CHURN out panels will be required, just like any other common building material. In a recent Renewable Energy World podcast with executives from Sharp (a manufacturer), Applied Materials (equipment suppliers), and Borrego Solar (a CA and MA based installation company), representing each primary stage of the value chain, a concern exists in module availalbility as things grow. Borrego, one of the countries top installers, seems to have really thought through their module supply chain, but other less experienced installers could be in a tight spot.

If the new investment tax credits (the only good part of the "bank bailout") combined with the lift of the residential cap (with state rebates that could essential cover 50 percent of the cost of going solar) causes demand to EXPLODE, we’re going to need all the manufacturers we can get. So, if anyone has 100 million around and a product spec, I know some remarkable manufacturing engineers that would love to turn that 100 million into a couple billion.