Moser picks up stake in US firm

Moser Baer Photo Voltaic (MBPV), a wholly owned subsidiary of Moser Baer India, has acquired minority stake in Stion Corporation, a nanostructures technology company based in California, formerly

NStructures. The investment follows the recent strategic equity participation in another two solar concentrator technology companies, Solaria and Solfocus. Ratul Puri, executive director, said: "This is another landmark development for us in developing the next-generation technologies in the PV space."

MBPV is moving towards the technological leadership in this high growth industry and developing a sustainable competitive edge by investing into disruptive technologies like concentrator photovoltaic (CPV), nano technology which are forcing the restructuring of the dominant solar technologies with a potential to compete with existing PV and conventional energy technologies. Stion Corporation is a pioneer in the cutting-edge nanostructure-based PV technologies.

The nanostructure particles are custom tunable using several substrate materials to create multiple junction materials capable of absorbing nearly the entire solar light spectrum.

This would result in high efficiency solar cells at a low cost. The technology involves leveraging and optimising the existing advanced technology for nano-particles specifically for the generation of electricity from solar energy.

The global photovoltaic market is on a high growth curve - sales expected to grow over six times to $40 billion by 2010. The demand is also highly price elastic.

A lowering of PV electricity costs to conventional levels could exponentially expand this market as PV starts to penetrate into base load demand of electricity.