The stimulus has had an underwhelming impact on the cleantech sector. Very little of the $36.7b of The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) allocated $36.7b to the Department of Energy (DOE) has gone to cleantech. Nuclear waste cleanup projects and state governments have received most of the money to date. Cleantech funding has been negatively impacted by delays at the state level and states reallocateing funds to address shortfalls in state budgets.
It is a rough time to be a startup in the Solar Photovoltaic sector. The financial crisis and deep recession has not only dried up capital, but has also hit demand for solar panels, which has lead to a global supply glut and a price collapse. In this very difficult environment startups must compete with much larger established global suppliers that have factories of hundreds of megawatts each, an established customer base and well developed brand names and sales channels. In this post we look at five promising CIGS thin film Solar PV startups based in the US and try to catalog their unique strengths and accomplishments.
