http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1578089393/bctid1840858416Video of Solyndra PV Plant ABOUT SOLYNDRA

What: Manufacturer of photovoltaic solar panels.

Where: 300,000-square-foot headquarters and heavily automated factory in Fremont, with plans to construct a larger, second factory (600,000 square feet) in 2009.

Employees: More than 500.

Executives: Chris Gronet, chief executive; Benjamin Bierman, vice president of global operations; Kelly Truman, vice president of marketing, sales and business development; W.G. "Bill" Stover, chief financial officer.

Founded: 2005, but operating in stealth mode until today.

Financing: More than $600 million.

Orders: $1.2 billion over the next five years.

 Solyndra differs from other solar companies in several ways. It makes solar panels from glass tubes, using 40 tubes per panel. Those panels are placed on racks about a foot above a roof's surface, thus taking advantage of the reflective light from the roof to generate more electricity. They aren't attached to the roof but held in place by gravity and the panel design, which allows the wind to blow through them, the company says. They snap in place, which cuts installation cost by 50 percent and installation time by two-thirds, Gronet said.

And because they don't need to be tilted, more of Solyndra's panels fit on a flat roof, he said."There's a vast underutilized resource for generating solar power, and it's right over our heads," Chris Gronet, Solyndra's chief executive officer, said in an interview. "There's over 30 billion square feet of large, flat commercial rooftop space (in the United States). If we covered that with our solar panels, that would generate 150 gigawatts, enough electricity to generate power for 15 percent of U.S. homes." Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer, thinks Solyndra has a good idea. Branson's Virgin Green Fund got pitches from 117 solar companies but invested in only one, Solyndra, said Anup Jacob, a partner in the fund's San Francisco office.  ****I bet if you covered BKK and Rayong roofs with PV tubes, they would generate 10 GigaWatt of electrical power or equal to 2 big Nuclear Plants or 4 to 8 Big Coal PLants.  

I am looking at installing solar panels on my next house.

Exciting!! I am looking forward to what the next ten years brings us.

So simple in its premise and yet so frigging clever. 8)

smart!