Abound Solar’s thin–film photovoltaic module manufacturing technology is the culmination of several years of relentless effort and scientific and engineering insights.

Research conducted by our founders at Colorado State University in the late 1980’s in the field of low cost metal deposition convinced our founders that to be truly successful, solar technology would have to be based on a low cost, high throughput production process. A foundation in mechanical engineering enabled the team to be technology agnostic as they searched for an answer to the problem rather than drive costs out of an expensive, existing solution.

In the mid-1990’s, the team found cadmium telluride (CdTe) to be the ideal solar photovoltaic technology due to the ease of deposition, low usage of semiconductor material, and high efficiency. The founders of Abound Solar became one of the leading investigators in CdTe solar technology, developing the fundamental processes for improving the efficiency and stability of CdTe devices.

In 1998, this core research, along with grants from the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, led to the development of a pilot process featuring an in-line semiconductor deposition tool utilizing cadmium telluride as the primary photovoltaic layer.

By 2004, we began to demonstrate the ability to scale up manufacturing to 42cm modules. Three years later, the founders established AVA Solar (which was later re-named Abound Solar) to commercialize the technology.

In 2007, the successful scale–up of the manufacturing process enabled the company to complement the federal research funding with private investment to commercialize the technology. By the end of 2008, this private investment totaled nearly $150 million.

In April 2008, we broke ground on a new manufacturing facility in Longmont, Colorado that would enable production of 200 megawatts of solar modules annually. Commercial production at this facility began in April 2009.

In July 2010, Abound received an offer for a $400 million loan commitment from the Department of Energy that will enable the expansion of the existing Longmont, Colorado facility as well as the construction of a second production facility in Tipton, Indiana. When both plants are complete, Abound Solar will be able to produce more than 840 megawatts of solar modules annually.

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