Soitec's concentrated solar technology, which differs from the common silicon panels seen on residential rooftops and big solar farms, showed such promising advances in efficiency during laboratory tests that its solar factory in San Diego was underwritten by a $25 million grant from the Department of Energy.
The city of San Diego helped ensure enterprise-zone tax breaks and fast-track permit approvals in the interest of creating hundreds of new jobs.
But big orders in the United States never materialized -- even at Soitec’s own development projects in southeastern San Diego County, where land-use approvals and litigation dragged on for years.
On Monday, Soitec executives in Bernin, France, notified investors that it had closed production in San Diego and at a longstanding facility in Freiburg, Germany, as the company “continues to sell off the residual assets of its solar activities.” Research and development also was suspended.
The U.S. market of concentrated solar never really emerged, even as sales of conventional silicon panels accelerated at renewable power plants spanning for hundreds of square miles across the desert Southwest.
Pricing may be the reason, but there have been so few big orders for concentrated solar in recent years that it is hard to tell, said Joachim Seel, a senior solar research associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Concentrated solar technologies like Soitec’s kept pace with broader industry pricing as recently as 2012, he said.
Soitec was the only solar manufacturer in San Diego County. Kyocera does solar design work in San Diego, and makes conventional solar panels in Tijuana.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy said its grant to Soitec’s helped create the largest plant of its kind, and that the feat may still prove useful.
“Although the company (Soitec) has placed its CPV factory up for sale, the Department of Energy gained valuable information from this award for a first-of-its-kind project that can be used to further similar projects in the future," said spokeswoman Dawn Selak in an email.
The grant came from an agency program designed to help the U.S. reclaim its competitive edge in solar manufacturing by supporting the initial acceleration to high-volume production. Funds were disbursed gradually, the agency said, as Soitec met milestones.
A 2014 peer review of the Energy Department grant to Soitec raised concerns about the company’s ability to compete with less-expensive conventional solar panels. The cheapest technology — not necessarily the most energy efficient — is likely to prevail, the experts said.
The plant was commissioned with agreements in place to provide more than 300 megawatts of generating capacity at a half-dozen future solar farms in San Diego County.
Just one of those plants, a seven megawatt solar array at Borrego Springs, is in operation today. A 150 megawatt order fell through when solar developer Tenaska switched to traditional photovoltaic solar panels at an Imperial Valley plant that opens next year.
Soitec solar technology uses patented lenses to focus light on a highly efficient solar cell no bigger than a ladybug. The lenses and cells are bundled into panels the size of a double garage door, then mounted on dual-axis trackers that follow the sun across the sky.
A representative for Soitec could not be reached for comment Tuesday. The company is shifting focus toward its core electronics business that supplies silicon wafers to mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices.
Patrick Brown, a land-use consultant who has worked for Soitec, said the company hopes to sell off the rights and permits to another developer to build two large projects, known as Rugged Solar and Terra del Sol, in southeast San Diego County near Boulevard.
San Diego County officials approved modifications to those projects last week, dropping plans for on-site battery storage, in response to a lawsuit by the conservation group Backcountry Against Dumps.
San Diego Gas & Electric was a key partner in contracts underwriting Soitec’s $200 million investment in the local assembly line.
SDG&E explained previously in a statement that it had taken “unprecedented action to work with Soitec, amending contracts, extending milestone deadlines and seeking additional California Public Utilities Commission approvals. ... But Soitec has historically not been able to meet the extended deadlines and other milestones in the contracts.”
Overseas orders propped up production at the San Diego factory earlier this year, but may have run out, too.
Engineers at SDG&E previously embraced concentrated photovoltaic solar technology because it provides a steadier electricity supply throughout the day, helping cope with high power demands late on summer days.
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