SiliconBeat

National Semiconductor, the Santa Clara chip-maker that sees growth potential in quality-of-life products that improve health care and encourage greener energy, said Thursday it had acquired Act Solar.

National Semi has a technology it calls Solar Magic. It improves the efficiency of solar panels that lose power when they’re shaded, covered with debris or get old. It goes into production later this year.

Act Solar, also based in Santa Clara, sells something called PowerString, which also improves solar efficiency by 6 to 11 percent by re-circulating small amounts of energy. Cumulatively, the company said, its technology will result in solar panels that produce 40-80% more energy over their 20-40 year lifespan.

In February, it announced a deal to sell 8 megawatts worth of PowerString to Pacific Power Management, a solar company that engineers and installs solar arrays.

“With Act Solar we can further improve the performance and efficiency of solar systems, at the same time providing monitoring capabilities not available before,” Mike Polacek, National Semi’s senior VP of key market segments, said in a statement.

No financial terms of the all-cash deal were announced. Act Solar is privately held. National Semiconductor had sales of $1.9 billion in its most recent fiscal year. A spokeswoman for National Semi says all of Act Solar’s employees will move to the company.

SolarBuzz, a San Francisco consultancy, is out with its list of the world’s hottest spots for solar today.

In 2008, it says, Spain become the world’s No. 1 solar nation, as its amount of PV solar installations grew 285 percent last year. Germany fell to No. 2, and the U.S. is third. (At 0.36 GW, the U.S. accounted for about 6% of the world’s solar market in 2008.) Korea, Italy and Japan round out the top 6. Europe still accounts for 82% of solar demand, it noted.

Worldwide, 5.95 GW of PV solar were installed last year, a record and a 110% increase from 2007.

Other findings:

* Solar cell production reached 6.85 GW, up from 3.44 GW in 2007. Nearly half of all solar cells (44%) came from China and Taiwan.

* Polysilicon supply increased 127%.

* The PV industry generated $37 billion in revenues, while raising $11 billion in equity and debt.

You can find a press release on the report and order one for yourself for just $3,950 at Solarbuzz.

The only stock I track on my Yahoo! homepage that fell Thursday was SunPower, the San Jose solar cell and system builder.

According to a MarketWatch story, that’s because company execs at two events this week cast doubt on first-quarter revenue and earnings due to European and North American business, the troubled global economy and the weather.

The story quotes J.P. Morgan analyst, who said, “We are concerned that the company may need to raise additional funds within the next 12 months given its balance sheet position.”

Shares of SunPower closed at $23.10, down 3.95%.

Lots of news on the solar beat today.

OptiSolar of Hayward was last in the news when it laid off half of its 600-person staff in January. Today, the company’s portfolio of solar projects, including a 550MW deal with PG&E, was scooped up by First Solar, the aggressive thin-film PV company based in Arizona.

That $400-million deal could mean 400 new green-collar jobs.

Gov. Schwarzenegger, who like other politicians is watching many things fall apart, economic-wise, was happy with the news.

“The Governor is pleased that First Solar has committed to making such a huge investment in California’s renewable energy projects. This type of utility-scale solar electric power is an example of the kinds of technologies that we need to meet our long-term energy and climate change goals while creating new jobs,” said Lisa Page, his chief deputy press secretary.

Meanwhile, a few hours earlier, San Francisco’s MMA Renewable Ventures, the financing firm that put together SunPower’s huge solar array at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, was acquired by Fotowatio, a Spanish solar developer.  That value of that deal — which includes 35MW worth of projects plus several hundred more in the pipeline –  was just under $20 million.

eSolar, the Pasadena startup funded by Google.org, Idealab and Oak Investment Partners, signed an agreenment with NRG Energy today to build a series of solar-thermal power plants in California and the Southwest U.S. When finished, the companies said, the plants will produce 500 MW of power, or enough for 400,000 homes.

NRG said it had invested $10 million to “develop, build, own and operate” 11 eSolar power plants on three different sites. The company will turn and sell the power to local utilities it said, without naming them.

NRG, based in New Jersey, operates 40 power plants that generate 24,000 MW of electricity, but this is its first solar venture.

eSolar uses concentrating solar power (CSP), where mirrors track the sun and reflect its light to a tower where water is boiled to make steam. That steam power a turbine and generates electricity.

Google.org invested $10 million in eSolar and BrightSource Energy of Oakland, another solar-thermal company using a similar technology.

You can read more at eSolar’s Web site.

NRG was the company that made an unsolicited offer to buy Calpine, the San Jose and Houston based energy company in May 2008. The deal was rejected by Calpine’s board.

A report just issued by UC-Berkeley notes that a wide variety of materials could result in lower cost solar cells. Researchers Dan Kammen, Cyrus Wadia and Paul Alivisatos note that mostcompanies still use silicon to make solar cells, and that both CdTe (cadmium telluride) and CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) are in use in making thin-film solar cells.

The team tested 23 semiconductor materials, and found that 12 are abundant enough to meet or exceed worldwide energy demand. And that 9 of the 12 could represent a significant cost reduction over silicon.

That short list includes: iron pyrite, copper sulfide, copper oxide.

Click here to read the full press release.