Despite economy, 3 companies stay on alternative-energy path

ByABC News
December 15, 2008, 11:48 PM

— -- President-elect Barack Obama has made renewable energy a centerpiece of his plan to resuscitate the U.S. economy and fight global warming.

Yet the credit crunch and nose-diving energy prices are prompting companies to scale back or cancel alternative-energy projects. In 2008, total spending on clean-energy projects is expected to fall 4% to $142 billion from 2007, research firm New Energy Finance says. But venture capital and private-equity firms are still investing in emerging technologies, it says. This year, such investments will increase to $14.2 billion from $9.8 billion in 2007.

Here are three companies that are forging ahead:

SOLAR SYSTEMS

Making solar affordable

Here's a way to bring down the cost of that $35,000 solar system you're thinking of putting on the roof of your house: Turn the solar system into your roof.

Installation fees now make up about 30% of the price of solar panels. Panels, after all, must be individually mounted with racks and frames. Letting them double as roof tiles or building facades can eliminate those fees.

For 10 years, about a dozen companies have been laminating or gluing panels directly onto the roofs of homes or businesses as they're built. Sometimes solar cells are embedded within glass facades of office buildings.

Yet this segment of the solar business known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) makes up less than 5% of the industry, partly because systems are pricey, says consultant Paul Maycock of Photovoltaic Energy Systems.

A start-up called HelioVolt aims to jump-start the market with a less costly BIPV system for homes that it says is also more aesthetically appealing. It plans to start churning out panels for roofs and facades at its Austin factory by the end of 2009.

"My vision is to change solar from being a retrofit to being an electronic component embedded in the building construction material," Helio CEO B.J. Stanbery says.

BIPV providers that target the home market typically use wafers made of expensive silicon as a semiconductor. Individual solar cells must be electronically linked to form modules as large as 36 square feet. The links create grid-like lines on solar panels.