Soitec Solar, a new North American subsidiary of French semiconductor materials manufacturer Soitec, has received a $25 million Sunpath award from the US Department of Energy in support of a large-scale concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) module manufacturing facility. Sunpath (Scaling Up Nascent PV at Home) seeks to increase America’s manufacturing competitiveness in the global solar market. Soitec acquired a 176,000-sq-ft manufacturing center in Rancho Bernardo, a community in San Diego, in December to support the manufacturing capacity of 200 MW of its fifth-generation Concentrix CPV modules, which convert sunlight directly into clean electricity via concentrator optics and solar cells. They provide 30 percent module efficiency. High-volume CPV module production will enable the company to deliver renewable energy and economic development by expanding its solar power plant customers throughout Southern California and the American Southwest, with export opportunities around the Pacific Rim. The $150 million project is expected to create 450 on-site jobs and more than 1000 indirect jobs at full capacity. Construction is under way, and the first phase is scheduled to be operational by the fourth quarter of this year. For more information, visit: www.soitec.com