AVA Solar joins thin-film funding flood with $104M

Fort Collins, Colo.-based AVA Solar said it has secured $104 million to complete its first factory, which is expected to start production in 2009.

AVA Chief Financial Officer Steve Abely told the Cleantech Group today that he expects the factory to have a capacity of 200 megawatts and produce panels for less than $1 a watt.The company announced the news late Wednesday night.

It was the second sizable thin-film announcement of the day. Early Wednesday morning, San Jose, Calif.-based Nanosolar disclosed a $300 million equity round to expand its existing and future production facilities (see Nanosolar grabs $300 million for utility solar). Nanosolar began selling panels in December (see Nanosolar starts shipping its first thin-film panels), also with a long-term goal to reduce the cost of solar panels to less than $1 a watt.

The pair join other major thin-film investments in the past year: Optisolar has raised more than $130 million in 2008; Sulfurcell Solartechnik raised $134 million in July (see Thin film pulls in a crowd); and Heliovolt closed a $101 million round in October (see HelioVolt boosts Series B to $101M).

The companies are trying to stay competitive as they look to scale their technologies, investors say. Until its new facility in Longmont, Colo., is completed, AVA is running a research-and-development production line of about three megawatts in its headquarters, said Russ Kanjorski, vice president of marketing for AVA.

AVA uses a proprietary semiconductor process to manufacture a sheet of glass into ready-to-install cadmium telluride panels, Abely said. The company plans to focus primarily on the utility market when it starts shipping panels in 2009, he said.

“We will be very cost competitive in that market,” Abely said.

New investor DCM led the funding round, with participation from Technology Partners, GLG Partners and Bohemian Companies. Also participating was The Invus Group, who led AVA’s first round of an undisclosed value in June 2007. That same month, the company secured a Department of Energy grant for $3 million.

A seed round in February 2007 included investors John Hill, founder of Hill Carmen Ventures, and Doug Schatz, co-founder of Advanced Energy Industries, both of whom now sit on AVA’s board. The company was founded in January 2007.

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