Bring it on: GE and LG enter the solar game | VentureBeat

Bring it on: GE and LG enter the solar game | VentureBeat

Looks like the solar market is getting interesting. GE and LG Electronics are making big moves this week with announcements that they will enter the U.S. solar market. GE is making two pushes into thin-film solar, and LG is launching its photovoltaic solar panels and has plans for some heavy R&D spending.

Both companies are entering the market as demand for solar continues to grow, with the U.S. market’s installed solar capacity projected to grow over 100 percent this year over 2009.

LG is investing $820 million over the next five years in solar cell research and manufacturing, with the goal of increasing capacity to over one gigawatt. It unveiled multicrystalline and monocrystalline photovoltaic solar panels (slated for sale in the U.S. market) at the Solar Power International conference in Los Angeles taking place this week.

GE, for its part, has offerings in two types of thin-film solar technologies. One is cadmium telluride panels, which it will team up with Colorado-based PrimeStar Solar to make commercially available in 2011. It has also signed an agreement with Solar Frontier, subsidiary of Japanese energy group Showa Shell, which will open a 900-megawatt factory in early 2011. GE and Solar Frontier are making available thin-film panels made with CIGS technology, named for its components, copper, indium, gallium and selenide. It is also offering solar inverters based on a similar inverter used in its wind turbines.

This marks a significant push into the solar sector by GE, which is growing its renewable energy division’s reach. Bloomberg notes that CEO Jeffrey Immelt has put over $1 billion into research and development in the area since 2002, when the company acquired Enron’s renewable energy business.