Miasolé
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Solar Energy |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara, California, U.S. |
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Key people
|
Jeff Zhou (CEO) Merle McClendon (CFO) Atiye Bayman (CTO)) |
| Products | Solar panels |
|
Number of employees
|
315 |
| Parent | Hanergy |
| Website | miasole.com |
MiaSolé is an American solar energy company selling copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic products. MiaSolé's manufacturing process lays CIGS on a flexible stainless steel substrate. MiaSolé produces all layers of photovoltaic material in a continuous sputtering process.
Based in Santa Clara, California, the company is focused on large-scale commercial and utility projects, and was acquired by privately held Chinese clean energy company Hanergy in 2013.
In 2006, Misolé said it would enter commercial production that year, although this was postponed. In 2007, new management was brought in and the commercial production forecast was changed to 2009. Throughout 2008 and much of 2009, MiaSolé worked on re-engineering the manufacturing process to improve efficiency and cost. By the second half of 2008, two 20 megawatt production lines were installed and MiaSolé had achieved 10.2% efficient modules as measured by NREL. In 2010, the company planned to expand capacity to 140 megawatts from about 60 megawatts. The company produced approximately 20 megawatts in 2010 and approximately 40 megawatts in 2011.
As of Q2 2012, MiaSole has a manufacturing factory in California with a 150 megawatt capacity.
MiaSolé's initial raise was in 2004 and led by VantagePoint Venture Partners. The B round raised $16 million in venture capital investment in June 2005, in a round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and raised a further $35 million in October 2006. The company raised $50 million in a fourth round of financing in September 2007, bringing total financing to $100 million. MiaSolé currently has roughly $500 million in investment from investors including VantagePoint Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, and Firelake Capital Management. In addition, the company received about $100 million federal tax credit from the United States Department of Energy. On January 9, 2013, Hanergy issued a press release stating that it had acquired MiaSolé for $30 million.
MiaSolé's development of a new production process leverages its executives’ experience in the hard disk and semiconductor industries. In this unique process, MiaSolé deposits copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), on a flexible stainless steel substrate entirely through a continuous sputtering process. Sputtering is used in volume thin-film production, and is used by high volume manufacturing companies in the disk drive and architectural glass industries. Sputtering deposits a thin film of material onto a surface in a vacuum. MiaSolé claims it uses a continuous sputter deposition process in one tool to deposit all layers of the CIGS solar cell on a lightweight stainless steel substrate.
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