Prism Solar Technologies Buys New Manufacturing Facility in Ulster County

Highland, NY (March 29, 2009) –  Prism Solar Technologies, Inc. (www.prismsolar.com) recently acquired a new manufacturing site in the Hudson Valley’s Ulster County for the production of its patented holographic planar concentrator (HPC) film. The site, located in Highland, includes 6.5 acres of land and a 93,000-square-foot manufacturing building previously occupied by PLASMACO, a Panasonic company.  Prism intends to create more than 200 jobs in the first few years and up to 400 over five years.

The Highland facility will ultimately produce 60 megawatts of solar modules for domestic markets and 1,000 megawatts of HPC film for sale to other solar module manufacturers. It's the first time an optics technology will be used to leverage the capacity of the entire solar industry.

“We are extremely excited to have purchased this unique facility” said Rick Lewandowski, Prism’s CEO.  “This will allow us to jump-start our operations and will immediately begin renovating the facility to allow a quick transition to our module manufacturing pilot line and then on to full production.”

Prism’s new plant includes features that would normally be found in a purpose-built site, such as glass handling and glass cleaning equipment, a compete machine shop, specialty optical equipment, 30,000 square feet of clean-rooms, a wet lab, facility-wide security and building management systems. Some equipment can be modified to produce thin film and crystalline photovoltaic cells and modules. 

Prism Solar received a $1 million grant through The Solar Energy Consortium (TSEC) earlier this year as part of its financing to begin manufacturing in New York State.   Congressman Maurice Hinchey and his entire staff worked tirelessly with TSEC and the U.S. Department of Energy to secure the funds, according to Mr. Lewandowski.