CPV: Amonix Founder Speaks, Blames VCs, Laments Lack of Supply Chain

Greentech Media
It's tough times for concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar firms. GreenVolts went under and Amonix went quiet after shuttering its Nevada factory and laying off much of its staff last year. SolFocus is trying to sell itself and finding no buyers. Only Soitec seems to be developing new CPV systems, helped presumably, by a healthier balance sheet. (...) [Amonix's founder] Garboushian described CPV as an impoverished market with 100 megawatts deployed and $500 million invested over the last ten years, compared to the $50 billion received by the silicon industry. Garboushian said that what CPV needs is a supply chain, large-scale manufacturing, consolidation of the technology, and a big corporate backer instead of VCs looking to flip companies in a few years' time. (...) He called CPV bankable technology -- but it's hard to be considered bankable if the vendor is not going to be around in one year, let alone twenty.
A colleague and early employee at a rival CPV firm notes, "The CPV industry remains locked in a battle against declining costs with silicon technologies. The 2012 surge in cost reduction achieved by silicon may ultimately prove to be the death blow to today's commercial CPV providers, though there continue to be innovations in CPV cell efficiency and module design that could keep the technology alive in the highest-DNI environments. The big question is whether silicon will allow some breathing room in 2013 with the price increases that some predict, or whether further cost and price reductions in 2013 make the gap wholly uncrossable."