It's time for a party at Nanosolar in San Jose's blossoming Edenvale Technology Park. And why not; the company has lots to celebrate.

After five years, more than $100 million, and the financial blessings of some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley (the founders of Google, eBay and others), Nanosolar is finally selling something.

The company said this week that it has just shipped its first solar panel and racked up its first sales. It developed an innovative technology, one that uses nanoparticles from a chemical compound, not silicon, to capture the sun's rays. The company describes this as the world's first printed thin-film solar cell, which is also the world's lowest-cost solar panel.

On top of that, the company forecasts rapid growth. It leases 90,000 square feet of office space once used by Cisco Systems for its offices and production plant, and will soon take up the entire 200,000-square-foot building. Next year, it will open a second factory in Luckenwalde, Germany, south of Berlin. That's also the destination of its first thin-film solar panels. They'll be used to create a 1-megawatt solar farm that will generate power for the city's utility district.