Cypress' solar good deed

In a goodwill gesture to help MIT’s First-Step Coral reef rehabilitation project in the Sagay Marine Reserve in the Philippines, Cypress Semi, through its SunPower subsidiary, has donated six 90-watt solar panels which are powering a coral reef rehabilitation process called BioRock.

According to MIT, BioRock is capable of increasing coral growth rates by up to five times and improving coral survival by over 20 times during bleaching events that occur when water temperatures are higher than normal.

This is a really cool move considering that the destruction of the reefs could lead to depletion of marine resources, which is particularly bad news to a region where many people depend on the sea for food, MIT said. According to MIT First Step Coral Team Leader Gerardo Jose la O’, 60 percent of animal proteins come from the reefs.

“It is critically important that the energy sources we use to power our BioRock structures are both renewable and highly efficient. With SunPower solar panels, we were able to locate the energy source close to our structures, minimize challenges in project site selection and reduce system cost,” he explained in a statement.

According to MIT, the First Step Coral project was funded with a grant from MIT after the team won the grand prize at the institution’s 5th Ideas Competition in May 2006. The project was launched at the Sagay Marine Reserve in July 2006 and the SunPower panels were installed earlier this year.

The team has three working models at the reserve, each powered by renewable energy sources including solar panels, wind turbines and tidal turbines. The Philippines was selected for the project since it has some of the most productive and most diverse coral reefs in the world. However, 95 percent of them are in poor condition due to sediment from a long history of erosion from deforested islands and heavy fishing using destructive methods, the team noted.

“BioRock uses cylindrical or dome-shaped structures made from steel rebar and electrically connected to a power source and a BioRock anode. Low voltage DC current is passed through the submerged BioRock structures to electrochemically deposit a calcium rich layer on the BioRock cathode and stimulate the existing coral polyps to regenerate. Dr. Thomas J. Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance and member of the MIT team, pioneered BioRock. Goreau is a dedicated activist on environmental and global ecology issues. His research continues to focus on the effects of global warming and pollution on coral reefs and development of BioRock technologies in the interest of coral preservation and coral reef restoration,” MIT added.

With the solar energy generation market picking up steam following solar installations such as this one, along with Applied Material’s acquisition of wafer saw maker HCT, it seems other suppliers are feeling hurt that Applied may be stealing their thunder.

Oerlikon Solar believes they have gained far more momentum in the market place than Applied Materials and their marketing machine is working overtime to get this message across.

I don’t mean to pick on Oerlikon, which I have to say I’m not familiar with, although maybe I should be. Oerlikon is headquartered in Truebbach, Switzerland and is better known for its machine and systems engineering with technology in textile production, thin film coating, propulsion, precision and vacuum technology. The company reports annual sales of $3.9 billion (4.8 billion Swiss francs) and more than 19,000 employees at 170 locations in 35 countries.

The company also claims that their production technologies are far ahead of any competition, and that it offers the only customer-proven turn key thin-film solar cell manufacturing tools.

This week the company opened its transparent conductive oxide (TCO) 1200 coating plant, key components in thin film silicon modules that act as electrodes and light traps, and claims it is the only company to offer the combination of the TCO process step with its own production technology for solar modules of thin film silicon.

The factory has been built at ersol Thin Film GmbH in Erfurt, Germany with production expected to begin in August, the company added.

–Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor