Solar manufacturer escapes economic woes

'totally funded by Schott' Gee, I wonder who (or what) Schott is.

SCHOTT AG is a manufacturer of high-quality industrial glass products, such as fiber-optics and components used in flat panel displays.

Schott AG is well known by the photographic community for manufacturing the glass components of Zeiss and Schneider Kreuznach lenses as well as B+W filters. They also publish the Schott Glass Catalog, which is a standard reference for the properties of the many optical glasses produced by them and other companies.

The company was founded in 1884 at Jena, Germany as Glastechnisches Laboratorium Schott & Genossen by Otto Schott, Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and Roderich Zeiss. The company later changed its name to Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Genossen. After the Second World War, the company was forced to relocate to Mainz in West Germany as Schott Glaswerke AG after the headquarters in Jena was taken over by the East German government and became Jena Glaswerke VEB. After the German reunification, Schott Glaswerke AG acquired Jena Glaswerke VEB to become a single company again.

In 2008 they announced plans to build a factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to build receivers for concentrated solar thermal power plants (CSP) and 64 MW of photovoltaic modules. They are already making 15 MW of photovoltaics annually in Billerica, Massachusetts. Schott plans to produce crystalline PV cells and modules with a total of 450 MW annually. In addition, the company will produce thin-film PV wafers with a capacity of 100 MW.[1][2]

As of 2008, Schott AG employs more than 16,800 people in 41 countries.