This year, the show touted around 20,000 visitors and 839 exhibiting solar companies from around the world with the co-located SEMICON West.

Intersolar North America, the premier solar industry exhibition and conference in North America for solar professionals to exchange information and develop business oppor-tunities in the U.S. solar market, today announced the successful close of three full days of cutting edge products and innovations of leading industry companies from the United States and abroad. Solar experts from around the world traveled to San Francisco last week to visit the exhibits; connect with solar professionals; and attend and present in the conference, specialized workshops and seminars during Intersolar North America’s fourth and largest annual exhibition and conference. This year, the show touted around 20,000 visitors and 839 exhibiting solar companies from around the world with the co-located SEMICON West. Intersolar North America provided a spotlight on issues in North American market while presenting it within the global context.

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This year was witness to impressive growth at Intersolar North America 2011 with exhibitors specific to Intersolar growing 17 percent, while Intersolar’s overall exhibit space grew to 170,000 net square feet—a 30 percent growth over 2010. Since its inauguration in 2008, Intersolar’s exhibition and con-ference has experienced tremendous growth in all areas, even more impressive when considering this growth was achieved during difficult market conditions brought on by the financial recession. About 20,000 verified visitors filled their days with exciting exhibits across all three levels of Moscone West and parts of Moscone North, conference tracks and panel sessions, among other activities. Numerous product announcements from exhibitors were also debuted. Intersolar North America makes a full list of exhibitor press releases available.

A packed room filled up for the Joint Forces for Solar – 3rd PV Briefing & Networking Forum. This ses-sion brought together local firms and installers with global players to enhance communication both up and down stream. A particular focus was paid to California PV market and its influence in shaping national policy. The forum consisted of panel presentations followed by an open discussion with presenters from Bosch Solar Energy, Q-Cells, REC, AEE Solar and CALSEIA.

The most dominant themes of the conference were policy and markets as well as technological ad-vancements. A continued sense of growth and learning emerged from the four-day conferences at the InterContinental Hotel. “PV Power Plants – Technology, Project Development & Financing” focused on deployed technologies and highlighted their management and quality control during the project development phase. Insight on best practices and financing models were focal points for this session, as the need to implement utility-scale solar installations has emerged as a major topic of conversation throughout the conference and exhibition. Another well-attended session was the “Future of PV – A Market and Technology Outlook & CEO Panel.” The session took a deep dive into high efficiency cells and improvements on thin film applications and organic cell research in the community. Panelists from the U.S. Department of Energy, Navigant Consulting, Lux Research, Solaria Corporation, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Soitec, Calisolar, Meyer Burger Technology AG, Canadian Solar, Q-Cells and Amonix discussed the future of low cost concepts and market potential for the United States and beyond. A close look was taken at the SunShot initiative and how to keep the nation competitive in a global solar marketplace.

As hosts of Intersolar North America, the city of San Francisco was involved in a number of events including a San Francisco Solar Bus Tour, where participants of the four-hour exploration of the city’s finest solar arrays walked away with an intimate grasp and fresh appreciation of the green print of San Francisco. Additionally, one of the many announcements made at Intersolar came from the City of San Francisco announcing the launch of Solar@Work, a new model for small businesses and solar affordability. Throughout the week, the Job & Career Forum was bustling. Companies searching for top talent and qualified candidates networked directly on the exhibition floor within U.S. and international solar job markets.

Source: Intersolar NA