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Print Edition StoriesMonday, December 15, 2008
Konarka collects $45M in R&D investment from France’s Total
By Efrain Viscarolasaga
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: Solar installation booms in New England
2008 High Tech All-Stars in their own words: Chris Brogan
Lowell-based thin film photovoltaic material maker Konarka Technologies Inc., has launched a new $45 million research and development deal with Total Gas & Power Ltd., a French oil and gas company.
With the deal, Total will become the leading stakeholder in Konarka, with a slightly less than 20 percent share in the company, according to officials. Konarka will work on developing new components for Total’s products with the publicly traded company’s chemical subsidiaries — Atotech, Bostik, Hutchinson, Sartomer and Total Petrochemicals USA.
Total already has a presence in solar energy through its Photovoltech and Tenesol subsidiaries, and the company says it aims to step up its crystalline silicon-based cell production, as well as its thin film segment, through Konarka.
With 96,000 employees in more than 130 countries, Total says it will continue with its traditional operations, including oil and natural gas exploration and production, refining and marketing, as well as gas and power trading.
Konarka’s thin-film technology allows for the colored printing and application of a polymer material that can convert light into energy. The technology, originally developed by the late Sukant Tripathy, a materials scientist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Alan Heeger, a 2000 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, has attracted a lot of attention since the company was founded in 2001, as well as more than $100 million in private funding from a number of investors, including 3i Group, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Enterprise Associates, Good Energies Investments and Chevron Corp.
In October, Konarka opened a new production facility in New Bedford, at the site previously operated by Polaroid Corp. The 250,000 square-foot building is the firm’s largest commercial scale production facility for its thin-film solar material, and it is expected to be able to produce 10 million square meters of material per year once fully commissioned. The facility is expected to begin commercial production in the first quarter of 2009.
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