SolarCity touts its panel's as world's most efficient - Buffalo News

Not only will the factory that SolarCity will occupy in South Buffalo be the biggest solar panel factory in the Western Hemisphere, the rooftop modules it makes will be the most efficient in the world, the company said Friday.The panels will be able to convert a little more than 22 percent of the sun’s energy into electricity – a milestone that SolarCity executives said will help it reduce the costs of its rooftop solar energy systems and make them more competitive with utility-generated electricity.“It’s another feather in the cap of the Buffalo region,” Bass said. “It will be the site where the world’s best solar panel is manufactured.”The efficiency of the solar panels is important because SolarCity and other solar energy firms are scrambling to reduce their costs before the scheduled expiration of a 30 percent federal tax credit on solar energy systems at the end of next year. Without the tax credit, solar energy systems in many parts of the country will struggle to compete with the cost of electricity produced by conventional sources, such as natural gas.By combining high-efficiency panels with cost savings that come from producing solar modules on a massive scale at its Buffalo factory – which will produce enough solar panels to generate 1-gigawatt of electricity – SolarCity hopes to push down the price of solar energy systems to the point where they don’t need to rely on government subsidies.“The biggest place where it will move the needle is in cost,” said Lyndon Rive, SolarCity’s chief executive officer.

The $900 million Buffalo factory, going up on the former Republic Steel site on South Park Avenue, will span 1.2 million square feet and have the capacity to produce between 9,000 and 10,000 solar panels each day, once it reaches full production sometime in early 2017. The company hopes to begin production on a limited scale during the first half of next year and gradually increase the plant’s output. Once the plant is running at full tilt, it is expected to employ 1,460 workers, with another 1,440 people working at local businesses that provide supplies and services to the factory.The project is the centerpiece of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion economic development initiative. The state is using $750 million in taxpayer money to build the factory and purchase its equipment in an effort to turn the Buffalo Niagara region into a hub for solar energy manufacturing.“The selection of SolarCity was, in part, already based on the demonstrated superior quality of their product,” said Alain R. Kaloyeros, the president of the SUNY Polytechnic Institute and the governor’s point man on the SolarCity project. “This was a necessary condition in our selection process to ensure that SolarCity remains way ahead of any Chinese competition in the marketplace. The coupling of higher quality panels with a truly competitive business model places SolarCity at the forefront of the solar industry,” Kaloyeros said.“With even higher efficiency now, expect higher demand for SolarCity’s products, and what’s good for SolarCity is good for Buffalo and the thousands of manufacturing jobs at RiverBend,” he said.Rive said the Buffalo factory remains on schedule to reach full production during the first quarter of 2017. He also said the timetable had not been affected by a U.S. Attorney’s office probe of state contracts, including those at the RiverBend project.“We haven’t seen any impact from that,” he said.

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