Back in 2007,
Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) won a $20 million
grant from the Department of Energy to research and develop
building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) products. The fruits
of that government-sponsored labor are Dow's Powerhouse Solar
Shingle, which the company is bringing to market in
partnership with solar-cell shop Global Solar Energy and
homebuilders
Lennar (NYSE: LEN) and
Pulte Homes .
Other firms active in BIPV include
Suntech Power (NYSE: STP),
Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq: ENER), and
Ascent Solar (Nasdaq: ASTI), which is a bit
further behind Global Solar in the commercialization of
thin-film copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) solar cells
on a flexible substrate. Compared to the
headline-grabbingutility-scale projects of
First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR), BrightSource
Energy, and others, BIPV hasn't given investors much to get
fired up about lately.
Dow may aim to change that. The company projects $5
billion in revenue by 2015, and $10 billion to $11 billion by
2020. That's just for the Powerhouse shingle, ostensibly the
first of more BIPV products to come. This is much more
ambitious than
DuPont 's (NYSE: DD)
targetof $1 billion for its own solar-related revenue,
and it would move the needle even for a company the size of
Dow Chemical.
The key source of Dow's enthusiasm appears to be its claim
that the shingle will be 30%-40% cheaper than current BIPV
solutions, and 10%-15% below the per-watt installed cost of
conventional rooftop panels. Of course, with the solar
industry in such a fluid state, that latter comparison could
shift dramatically, depending on relative technology
advances, not to mention panel supply and demand
imbalances.
We'll have to see how the trial installations go in 2010
before getting too excited -- or worried, for those investing
in competitors like ECD -- about these new solar
shingles.
Dow Chemical is rated a handsome four stars by the
Motley Fool CAPScommunity. Want to see what members have
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This article was originally published as
A New Powerhouse in Solaron
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