DayStar trims staff, refocuses

While new players seem to be emerging weekly, a venerable thin film solar vendor today announced dramatic steps to stay in business—including cutting about 30 percent of its staff, retooling its product and moving its headquarters.

DayStar Technologies (NASDAQ: DSTI), a developer and manufacturer of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS)-based photovoltaic products, said the moves are intended to accelerate the company's time-to-revenue.

The company plans to move certain staff from its New York headquarters to its Silicon Valley-area facility, where it intends to build a 25 megawatt production line to commercialize its monolithically integrated CIGS modules on plate glass substrates.

DayStar was originally based in Grass Valley, California, near the state's capital of Sacramento.

DayStar had previously been using stainless steel for its TerraFoil® product, and flexible titanium for select products intended for military purposes.

"Modules on glass are a faster path to revenue generation, which is one of the near term requirements of the flavor of the money that we're seeking from the public markets," said DayStar VP of sales and marketing Terry Schuyler to the Cleantech Group.

The company has been on tenuous financial footing and has been seeking new money for some time (see DayStar gets commitments for additional capital and DayStar founder resigns, restructuring continues.) While its new modules-on-glass commercialization plans are contingent upon new financing, Schuyler was optimistic money would be forthcoming.

"We're heavily engaged, and are confident that in a short amount of time we'll have secured it," he said.

DayStar says it reviewed its revised product strategy carefully with its primary customer, Blitzstrom GmbH, which agreed to its change in product focus and even amended its sales agreement, extending through 2011, to include the company's forthcoming CIGS on glass modules.

DayStar's existing Halfmoon, New York facility is to be known as the DayStar Applications Center, and is intended to continue as a development lab, focused on, among other things, the development of new cell interconnection approaches as well as flexible substrates.

"We see the market for flexible product to be significant, emerging and growing, and that's probably going to be long term market focus for our technology, where we think we'll have the best play in the future."

In all, about 20 jobs will be lost from the Halfmoon, said Schuyler, leaving about 50 people left at the company.

Schuyler acknowledged the changes were difficult, even though they were were the right thing for the company.

"We think this is a positive move even though it has some rough edges in terms of the messaging of it. But this is the required step to commercialization, and gives us the ability to have a play in near term market opportunities, as well as maintaining a play in longer term upside markets."

"It's a bit of an operational shift required at this stage of the growth of the company."

DayStar today announced net losses of approximately $17.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2007. All funding to date has been used in maintaining research, development and administrative functions, it said today in a regulatory filing.

Shares of DayStar closed the day down almost 11 percent, falling 40 cents to $3.25.

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