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TJ Rodgers is the chief executive of San Jose's Cypress Semiconductor, a company that makes things like programmable logic devices, USB controllers, and SRAM chips -- the basic building blocks of modern gadgets and computers.
Today in Silicon Valley, though, Rodgers is just as well-known for his role in buying and building up SunPower, which sells rooftop solar systems that provide power at prices competitive with utility rates. SunPower's market capitalisation is more than £2.5bn, which isn't bad for a company that Rodgers kept alive with his own money until his board came around.
Keep reading for some excerpts of CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh interviewing Rodgers.
Declan McCullagh: How much of your future revenue growth is going to come from solar cells and panels from SunPower vs. your traditional product line?
TJ Rodgers: In the last couple years, all of our growth has been SunPower. In our semiconductor business, we've divested something like six businesses to [focus on SunPower]. We'd be over a billion dollars this year if we had not divested businesses. We'll still be over £400m this year because we grew while we divested business. Overwhelmingly [SunPower] has been our growth. Overwhelmingly it's been the focus of our attention. We've earned it. People talk about SunPower as if it was an independent entity that's not connected to Cypress. That's really not true.
DC: What do you think of the supposed progress in CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) as an alternative to silicon?
TJR: CIGS is a loser. I've been saying it's a loser consistently for a year and a half. I don't think it's going to make it. I don't think any of them are going to make it. The reason is low efficiency.
DC: Even though it offers lower costs?
TJR: Not really. I'll tell you why in a minute...We just installed the largest American solar installation ever outside of Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas -- 14 million watts on approximately 140 acres. You see giant concrete buttresses holding the panels against desert winds. You see tracking motors moving large panels left and right to follow the desert sun. You see conduits. You see switching centres where the power comes together. If that thing were made out of CIGS, it would be 420 acres. If would have three times as many trackers, and they're expensive.
The mistake that CIGS people have made is that they look at cost per watt of a solar cell and assume if they have some sort of advantage, they'll win.
DC: SunPower's Web site lists some case studies showing there's near-parity with electrical utility pricing, at least in California.
TJR: For a system on your house, let's say the full retail price prior to subsidy is $10 (£5) per watt. Of the $10, $3 is the solar cell and $7 is everything else -- the frames, the panels, the modules. So somebody comes along and says my product's half the cost, so take your panels, empty them out, and I'll give you solar cells at half the efficiency but half the price. Your $3 per watt goes to $1.50. Your $10 per watt total goes to $8.50. Oh, and your ten-panel system went from 2,500w to 1,200w. It got cut in half.
Having said that, there is one thin-film technology that is viable and it's cadmium telluride, not CIGS. It works because the way it's made is the substrate is a piece of glass. You put a piece of glass in a machine... It's less than half as efficient as the best silicon cells, the one we make. It's also cheaper for real because they get rid of the panel; the module becomes an inherent part of the framework.
For a five-acre warehouse with a flat roof in Los Angeles, it makes sense to go for the lowest cost for watt. [Cadmium telluride] is going to make it. CIGS is not. Silicon will continue to dominate in the future.
DC: What do you think of Suntech, the Chinese solar company, that's making international inroads?
TJR: Every company does something they do well. They've got a country behind them and they do super low-cost manufacturing. They're good. They make medium efficiency cells, say 15 per cent. But they make stuff real cheap. And it's real panels like this that you can walk on and have long-time environmental life.
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