The well-attended 2010 North American Intersolar brought out the solar faithful to three floors of exhibits and four days of packed conferences. Multiform Media was there covering the announcements and projections.  We were also active at the Applied Materials Booth at Semicon West helping with the videotaping of customers.

What we heard over and over is that the US is the next big solar market and in the next few years we will surpass Germany, the world leader in installations.  The government is doing its part with loan guarantees and tax credits but it’s the states that are individually and together pushing forward. For example, California has RETI (Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative) which joins stakeholders from state, local, renewable energy companies, environmentalists, utilities, the military and the federal government to streamline the process needed to get the renewables on a fast track. They’re identifying solar sites throughout the state and getting ready for large-scale installations.

Next there is the possibility of feed-in tariffs (FIT) that have aided the development of renewables in Europe. In 2000 Germany projected to reach 12% energy from solar by 2010 but by 2009 had already reached 16%.  Additionally 300,000 jobs were created in the sector. A FIT is being implemented for solar in Gainesville, FL at the city level and under consideration in states like Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Oregon, Washington and others.

When you add up the benefits, and all the forces pushing to make solar energy available everywhere, it is a movement that will not be stopped.

We began post-production yesterday on 2 new videos for our solar client Applied Materials.  We are editing footage from last months trip to Europe when we filmed at Applied’s Baccini Cell Systems factory in Treviso, Italy and at Applied’s Precision Wafering Systems (PWS) factory outside of Geneva, Switzerland.  It was a very exciting trip as we learned about this amazing technology for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells.  The Max Edge machine at PWS was extremely impressive. It takes these bricks of ingot (chunk of metal / silicon the size of a large brick) and cuts them into wafers 1/4 times thinner than a human hair.  It uses these gold wires that create a web to saw this metal.  The Swiss certainly live up to their history of precision.  We will post an excerpt from these videos after they debut for our client, and with their permission.  Please check back for updates.