The U.S. Department of Energy recently selected Soitec Solar, a local subsidiary of the French semiconductor materials manufacturer Soitec, for a $25 million Sunpath award to support its new North American solar manufacturing facility in Rancho Bernardo.
Sunpath, which is short for Scaling Up Nascent PV at Home, seeks to increase America’s manufacturing competitiveness in the global solar market.
Soitec acquired a 176,000-square-foot structure on 14.8 acres in December. It is now turning the building into a factory that can produce Soitec’s fifth-generation of Concentrix concentrator photovoltaic modules, or CPV modules. The $150 million project is expected to create 450 on-site jobs and more than 1,000 indirect jobs at full capacity. The first phase is scheduled to be operational by the fourth quarter.
“This Sunpath award will accelerate the production and output of Soitec’s first large-scale CPV module manufacturing facility in San Diego,” said Clark Crawford, Soitec’s U.S. vice president of sales and business development.
CPV technology converts sunlight directly into “clean” electricity via concentrator optics and solar cells offering the best design for use in sunny regions, according to the company.