It was quite the flashy week in the world of solar.
First Solar
Also early in the week, Trina Solar
LDK Solar
Nanosolar, a thin-film start-up that we've followed with interest for quite a while now, made a series of announcements on Wednesday. The company has got its German factory up and running, with a nameplate capacity of 640 megawatts (though it's only spitting out one megawatt/month at present). Nanosolar also provided a few more details about its panels, which are certified at a higher system voltage than any other out there, and have been independently verified at 16.4% efficiency in the lab. Median efficiency in production is running above 11%.
Rounding out the week that was, Canadian Solar made further inroads into the South Korean market in a deal with the LG Group, solar thermal bigwig BrightSource brought in Bechtel as both a contractor and an equity investor on its 440MW Ivanpah facility in California, and Evergreen Solar
Out of that trio of solar firms, Brightsource is probably the best bet. You can't invest in it yet, but Google