LOW CARBON ETHICAL SOLAR
Climate: On a life cycle emissions basis, our finished solar products will have 67X lower embedded GHGs than competing products from Asia. Our planned manufacturing operations leverage a low emissions power grid to produce best-in-class Scope II GHG emissions. Our close-coupled vertically-integrated regional manufacturing model also eliminates significant GHG emissions generated from shipping product from Asia to North American customers.
Energy transition: Electric power generation and transportation account for almost half of GHG emissions in the US and Canada. Our products enable the transition away from fossil fuels not just in the fast-growing utility-scale solar power generation market but in new markets like aerospace and passenger vehicles as well.
Recycling: Our process will be able to recycle the scrap kerf and silicon from the manufacturing process, reducing cost and enabling a post-production recycling process of most silicon-based PV modules. Recycling modules is an attractive marketing program as more customers want to re-module existing systems. This can be a separate profit center since each module contains between US$5 and US$20 of silver. (Silver prices have gone up now that PV consumes about 10% of the world silver market).
Labor: Our workforce and supply chain will be entirely based in North America, allowing us to guarantee customers that their products are being sourced from factories free of questionable labor practices and operating with full commitment to fair wages, benefits, safety, and a diverse workforce.
For further reading on some of the challenges and opportunities in the solar PV industry, see the following:
Behind the Rise of U.S. Solar Power, a Mountain of Chinese Coal
