By Art Mass

Abound Solar, formerly known as AVA Solar, attracted several big names among the hundred or so attendees on hand at the debut of the company’s manufacturing facility in Longmont this week. Not surprisingly, the state’s leading public policy advocate for renewable energy, Gov. Ritter, was on hand, and so too, were Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the charismatic general chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy, and president of Eurosolar, Dr. Hermann Scheer.

The occasion was almost a year to the date from ground breaking and it marked another bell weather event in Colorado’s quest to be a national leader in new energy.

“Abound Solar proves that we have the capability here in the United States to cost-effectively meet our energy needs, while protecting our climate,” said Mr. Kennedy. The Governor championed the solar company as a “true Colorado success story of how renewable energy technologies can move from the lab to the marketplace.”

The history of the company does read like a blueprint for Colorado-flavored renewable business success, starting with years of research headed by W.S. Sampath, director of Colorado State University’s Material Engineering Laboratory. Add a healthy dose of support from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; an initial round of funding; and later, more financial support stemming from the Department of Energy’s Technology Incubator Program,; and the company was in position to build its first 3MW pilot-production line in 2007.

As AVA Solar last August, it completed a $104m second institutional equity financing round, led by Doll Capital Management and joined by new investors Technology Partners, GLG Partners and Bohemian Companies LLC, as well as past investors that included Invus LP. This jumped the total funding from private investors and institutions to almost $150M, and enabled completion of the Longmont plant.

Annual capacity for the new facility will start at 65MW and ultimately grow to 200MW, according to a company spokesperson. Abound touts its equipment driven process in which its proprietary sheets of glass are turned into solar panels in under two hours and at a cost of less than $1/watt. Skeptics say the relatively high cost of the glass involved in the process is a negative.

Abound says 300 jobs have been added to the payroll, with 500 employees expected to be in place by the end of the year. “We are trying to get the cost of solar power down to be competitive with fossil fuels [i.e. grid parity],” said Mark Chen, director of marketing. “Larger-scale projects are more likely to accomplish this in the near term.” Chen added that  his manufacturing costs will be competitive with industry leader - First Solar, which claims to have reduced its CdTe PV manufacturing cost in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 98 cents per watt.

And what’s behind the recent name change? “Our new brand identity represents a change in the company’s
look, as well as our focus,” explained president & CEO Pascal Noronha. “We are well-positioned to address the growing demand for solar power, and we are focused on scaling to create a source of renewable, abundant and universally affordable energy.”

While the severe recession has slowed the renewable energy investment express for the time being, Abound Solar has enough physical and financial infrastructure in place to garner more market share. Industry watchers project the global solar market to expand by 30% in the near future. The U.S. share may not achieve that growth rate any time soon, and clearly a shakeout will occur. Nevertheless, stimulus funding for renewable projects here in Colorado in the form of massive loan guarantees and enhanced tax credits has the local solar industry abuzz.

Abound Solar’s management team says they are still looking for additional investment funds to demonstrate scalability, and doing so by expanding the Longmont facility by close to 50% and building a bigger plant elsewhere in the U.S.

The company has applied to the DOE for a loan guarantee. The federal agency financed its first loan ($535m) under a three-year-old program with California-based Solyndra Inc., a manufacturer of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film PV modules.