MENLO PARK, Calif.--Solar power hasn't swept the nation but it must and will, said members of utilities, clean-tech start-ups, venture capital firms, and academia at the Big Solar conference here Wednesday.

California will literally live up to its "Golden State" nickname and shine as a model for the rest of the country thanks to progressive lawmakers, Silicon Valley dealmakers, and innovators at state and university labs, according to the event's many optimists.

"The time has come in the United States for large-scale solar," said Ed Smeloff, senior manager of utility project sales at SunPower, a maker of solar systems including those at the nation's largest plant at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. "The wind is to our backs on this."

Among the bright points noted by Smeloff and others, each presidential candidate supports clean energy, of which solar is the best understood.

U.S. photovoltaics account for just 8 percent of the global market totaling 2,826 megawatts, according to a Solarbuzz report.

Demand for electricity will expand one-third by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration. Solar producers hope their energy product will fill the gap with a minimal carbon footprint.

Energy Conversion Devices Inc. finally proved itself. A cousin of sorts to solar energy phenom First Solar Inc., the firm conspicuously sat out last year’s stunning rally in the sector’s shares.

But today was the day for earnings show and tell, and the believers were vindicated. Solar sales rose 193% from the period a year earlier, and the company posted a profit of 17 cents a share. Analysts, on average, had expected break-even. The result: ENER stock soared $15.10 to $49.91, or 43%, for Nasdaq’s biggest gain.

Energy Conversion fashions solar modules based on “thin film” silicon that can be designed into roofs for big-box stores, airplane hangars and other commercial buildings. With the financial success of First Solar, investors have taken a shine to the thin-film concept.

FSLR, however, uses cadmium telluride to convert the sun’s rays into electric power. Both formulas bypass the supply bottleneck and price inflation that bedevil makers of conventional, slab-style silicon solar cells, and that’s key. Part of Energy Conversion’s secret is also the lightness and flexibility of its wares, making them a convenient and cost-effective feature in construction.

With its history rooted in R&D, the company has struggled to get its act together as an efficient manufacturer and sales machine. Now, tributes are being paid to the new chief executive, Mark Morelli, for making the operation jell.

Energy Conversion’s target market is also jelling, and in the quarter that just ended, the company was firing on all cylinders. Instead of their usual gradual slide, selling prices were firm. Gross margin tells the tale. It blossomed from 19.2% to 30.7% in just one quarter. Analysts had expected an improvement to about 25%.

NEW YORK, May 6 (Reuters) - U.S. chemical maker DuPont Co (DD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it plans to open a research and development center and a manufacturing facility in China to cater to the growing demands of the solar energy industry.

The research and development facility will be based in Hong Kong, while the plant will be in Shenzhen.

The company expects growth in the photovoltaic market to exceed 30 percent each year over the next several years. DuPont has made significant investments in product development and capacity expansions to help keep pace.

The R&D center will likely begin operations in 2009. There is no set date for the opening of the Shenzhen plant.

The expansions in Hong Kong and Shenzhen will provide new offerings to serve the amorphous silicon thin film market. These thin films are used in the production of photovoltaic modules.

"DuPont is accelerating its ability to deliver innovations that will improve the lifetime and efficiency of photovoltaic modules," said David Miller, group vice president of DuPont's electronic & communication technologies segment.

In a statement, Miller said the facilities will also help the company keep pace with the fast-rising global demand from the sector.

DuPont also announced it plans to invest about $150 million to expand and upgrade its facilities that manufacture ethylene copolymers used by the packaging, automotive and solar cell industries. (Reporting by Euan Rocha, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Photovoltaic (PV) technologies which harness solar energy in solar power installations are making rapid progress. The latest life cycle analysis of four current PV systems shows a trend for all of these to have significant and increasing environmental benefits in terms of reducing emissions compared with conventional electricity production.

All forms of electricity generation create emissions at some point during their life cycle. PV systems generate sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions, resulting from the fossil energy used in production. The production of PV systems is also responsible for toxic metal emissions, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel, as all these elements are present in fossil-fuels.

PV technologies are becoming ever more popular as a means to generate electricity and at the same time significantly reduce emissions harmful both to human health and to the environment. Today’s solar electricity systems have an energy payback time (the time needed to generate the energy that was consumed for manufacture and installation) of one to two years in Southern Europe and three to three and a half years in more northern parts.

Typically, PV technologies have a technical lifetime of 25 years or more, which means that solar electricity is a highly sustainable and effective option to reduce CO2 emissions. Researchers supported by the European Commission, under the Integrated Project CrystalClear1 and the U.S. Department of Energy2 used data from 12 PV manufacturers to determine the emissions from four major PV technologies: multicrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon, ribbon silicon and thin-film cadmium telluride.

The thin-film cadmium telluride technology emitted the lowest amount of harmful emissions because it uses the least energy during production. However, the differences in emissions between these PV technologies were very small in comparison to the significant emissions that could be saved by switching from conventional energy technologies to PV. The  researchers suggest at least 89 per cent of air emissions associated with electricity generation could be prevented if PV replaced energy from the average European grid. When PV replaces fossil fuel sources, it prevents all associated emissions.