Signet Solar - Big Plans In The Indian PV space

Signet Solar is the latest in a series of companies planning to manufacture solar photo-voltaic modules in India. Similar to Solar Semiconductor, Signet Solar is a Silicon Valley based company, founded by NRI's, all industry veterans. Their model suggests that the business office will be centered in the US, while R&D (and some manufacturing) will happen in Germany, while the high-scale manufacturing will be in India. The fabs will be supplied by Applied Materials, in a model similar to that adopted by most other companies manufacturing in India.

The company was launched in May, 2007, and in June, 2007 they announced that India would be the main manufacturing base. The plan is to initially set up a 60 MW manufacturing plant, with a targeted total capacity of 1,000 MW in 10 years with a total investment of $2 bn.

Here is a quick introduction to Signet Solar's proposed business model and an assessment of its chances in a "booming but crowded" solar PV market, which also has a link to Navigant Consulting's report on the solar industry Solar Outlook (Apr 12, 2007).