Deals and dealmakers continue to shine in Long Beach

Dealmaking took a break for Ted Turner's keynote at Solar Power 2007, but companies continued to tout their achievements once the former media mogul was done praising solar and railing against coal and the White House.

Turner, who partnered with New Jersey's Dome-Tech Solar in January to create DT Solar, said at the Long Beach, Calif., conference yesterday he's looking at expanding his company's renewable holdings.

"More than the business opportunity in the 21st century, I think this is the greatest business opportunity in the history of humanity. Because the entire world is going to have to redo its energy regime, and solar is going to be a very big part of it," Turner said at the conference.

Take a look at Ted in Long Beach here >>

DT Solar provides on-site solar electric power systems for commercial and industrial clients, and develops utility-scale solar power plants in the southwestern U.S.

Two-year old Solar Semiconductor, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is another company grabbing onto humanity's "greatest business opportunity."

The company announced a supply contract at the conference in Long Beach today, making a deal for $170 million worth of mono and multi-crystalline cells from Germany's ersol Solar Energy.

Solar Semiconductor, backed by its management, bought a 50 megawatt plant in Hyderabad, India, in February, a country that's in its infancy in the solar business.

"In terms of manufacturing it's drawing a lot of attention," Hari Surapaneni, president and CEO of Solar Semiconductor, told the Cleantech Group.

India's Moser Baer and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Signet Solar both have plans to put up solar production in Hyderabad.

"We are the leaders not only in terms of getting there, but also leaders in terms of production and making money. They are fully one or two years behind us, in that sense," said Surapaneni.

This is only the company's second supply contract (see Solar Semiconductor, Q-Cells in supply contract), but it already has plans to ramp up production to 100 megawatts by early 2008.

Surapaneni said the company has already spent $2.5 million to $3 million on land for a second plant.

"This is actually a hundred acre facility, so we have the ability to build it to whatever, literally," he said. "We can build a gigawatt factory in the next several years."

Surapaneni said the company, which started its first production in August, plans to announce several more supply deals as it continues to increase production.

Other companies making announcements at Solar Power 2007 include Victoria, British Columbia's Carmanah Technologies and Montreal-based ICP Solar Technologies.

Carmanah introduced its self-contained 10 to 80 watt EverGEN solar engines, while ICP rolled out its Sunsei amorphous thin-film solar tiles and its wireless Sunsei GreenMeter.

Ted Turner said he hopes companies like Solar Semiconductor, Carmanah and ICP get together to help change policy in the States to support solar power.

"It's going to take everybody in the industry going to Washington and learning how to talk to those senators and congressmen," said Turner.

"I can't say that the president gets it very well, but hopefully we'll have somebody a little smarter next time."

The largest individual landholder in North America, with over two million acres in 12 states, and more than 45,000 head of bison, Turner said he's no stranger to renewable energy.

"I've been using some solar for 25 years, to replace diesel pumps to pump water out of the ground so that the bison will have some water to drink and the wildlife will," said Turner.

"Why, I sailed around the world with wind power for God sakes."

Turner started sailing when he was nine years old and successfully defended the America's Cup for the U.S. in 1977 as skipper of the yacht Courageous.

The businessman, who made a $1 billion donation to the United Nations in 1997, called for cuts in global military spending, saying governments should put their cash into clean energy research instead.

"At any given time 50 times as many people are using coal burning generated power than solar power right now. We aim to change that," said Turner.

The former head of CNN said he spent years outdoors, camping, hiking and riding horseback, and said he takes the threat of global warming "very seriously."

"I think it poses a threat to our very existence and our very civilization, and I am just not, without going down swinging, I'm not going to leave a burned-out, hothouse world that's not sustainable to our children and grandchildren."