Solar Panel Manufacturing Operation Opens in Chatsworth

Long time researcher and developer of low-cost‚ high-efficiency solar power technologies, Dr. Vijay K. Kapur has big plans for his Chatsworth based company. International Solar Electric Technology, Inc., which he founded in 1985, has been perfecting a technology for developing solar panels using a patented “Ink-Based” process, where special ink is printed on glass, or stainless steel foil, and processed to create hair- thin film photovoltaic cells. The panels can be rigid or flexible. Now Kapur said the company is ready to take that technology from the laboratory to a large commercial platform. “Our goal is to set up a solar manufacturing facility right here in LA; I don’t believe in chasing low-cost labor, we want to use the best of the talent available here, and make it a center of clean energy in the world,” Kapur said during a special presentation to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who toured the ISET facility on Aug. 30. “We want to raise funds to go to full-scale production.” Kapur said the company needs to raise $50 million in growth capital to go from a pilot production line to large scale manufacturing operations that aim to supply the growing national and export markets. The company is already pursuing both public and private financing which will allow it to convert its facilities into a state of the art factory and hire more than 250 workers. Kapur said he needs the mayor’s help in getting a federal Department of Energy loan guarantee and is seeking the city’s endorsement of the plan in order to secure letters of credit from local, state and national entities. Kapur said ISET wants to partner with the Los Angeles Unified School District to supply solar panels for school rooftops and is also looking to build vendor relationships with the LADWP and the City. If the company is successful in raising the needed funding, Kapur said production would be ready to begin in 18 months. ISET also plans to partner with real estate company Charles Dunn to outfit hundreds of buildings that it owns, with solar panels. Kapur, who served as Director of Applied Research for ARCO Solar from 1979 to 1984, and has nearly 40 years of experience developing solar technology, said the timing could not be better to begin mass producing solar panels using ISET’s technology. ISET’s streamlined operations and processes would allow the company to manufacture solar panels for almost a third of the cost of what they are being produced today, he said. “We’re going to produce solar electricity cheaper than what we do by any other means today, and that’s not too far away, it’s a matter of financing and about two-three years time,” he said. “This is going to become a commodity for clean energy that’s going to create tons of jobs.” These lower prices would allow the company to outcompete even China in the race to capture market share in a growing solar energy industry, where worldwide sales reached $35 billion in 2009. Projections indicate in three years time the US could be the biggest market in the world for solar applications, said Kapur. With the exception of Spectrolab, which is owned by Boeing and makes solar cells for space power applications, ISET is the only solar manufacturing company in Los Angeles, he said. “I think this has great potential right here in this city,” Kapur told Villaraigosa. Villaraigosa, who has been a key proponent for developing the city’s Clean Tech Manufacturing corridor and has been a staunch supporter of clean energy transformation, said he and his staff were prepared to work and collaborate with Kapur. “As you know I’ve been beating the drum on everything that you mentioned,” said Villaraigosa who has set ambitious renewable energy goals for Los Angeles. “I’ve been pushing a wheelbarrow up a big hill. If not here, where in America? Where do have sun 317 days a year?”