FORT COLLINS, Colo.—A solar-panel company is scouting sites in northern Colorado for a manufacturing plant that it says could employ up to 500 people.
AVA Solar Inc. is hoping to find a site soon in the Fort Collins-Loveland area and plans to have the new plant operational by the end of 2008, said Russ Kanjorski, AVA Solar’s strategic planning director.
“Our hope is we can find something that works for the community and the company and put it right here,” Kanjorski said Tuesday.
The plant will produce a lower cost solar panel using a patented technology created by Colorado State University mechanical engineering professor W.S. Sampath.
Sampath and two affiliate faculty members, Kurt Barth and Al Enzenroth, formed Fort Collins-based AVA Solar in January to commercialize the technology that transforms window glass into a solar panel with a coating of cadmium telluride film instead of the typical crystalline silicon, CSU said.
As planned, the new plant will produce enough solar panels annually to generate 200 megawatts of electricity, which would serve 40,000 homes based on average household use. Company officials said the production cost will be less than $1 per watt of electricity.
“Their promise of being the world’s lowest-cost producer is very welcome as prices have recently been high because of limited supply,” said Ron Larson, founder of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society.
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