PV Powered conducts research in a field of solar panels outside its northeast Bend offices on Brinson Boulevard. Part of the U.S. Energy Department’s Solar Energy Grid Integration System program, the research will help develop technology to allow solar-power systems to better interact with utilities.

Bend-based PV Powered has continued its rapid growth, nearly tripling its work force in 16 months, seeing its products installed in high-profile projects and helping its parent company capture the largest market share in North America.

“We’re winning some big projects left and right,” CEO Gregg Patterson said Tuesday.

PV Powered’s solar-electric inverters will be part of the second-largest solar electric system built in Orange County, Calif., Independent Energy Solutions, the contractor, announced in a news release Tuesday.

The system, to be installed on the roof of a federal building in Laguna Niguel, Calif., will produce more than 1.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity when completed, according to the news release. That amount of electricity would power roughly 130 homes.

PV Powered inverters also will help keep the electricity flowing at CBS Television City studios in Los Angeles, according to a Sept. 22 news release from Power-Save Energy Co., the contractor that awarded the $2.4 million deal.

The installations serve as examples of the explosive growth in the solar industry, which reported a 37 percent increase in solar electric installations in the U.S. last year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association 2009 Year in Review.

In Oregon, solar energy-related employment is expected to double by 2012, to about 2,000 workers, according to a presentation from Business Oregon.

Within the solar-electricity industry, PV Powered makes inverters, which in the simplest terms convert the sun’s energy collected by the solar cells into the electricity needed to run a business or household.

Founded in 2003, PV Powered builds inverters and conducts research in a former wood-products factory it moved into in 2008 on Brinson Boulevard in northeast Bend.

The company started out using 14,000 square feet in the Brinson plant and today occupies 70,000, Patterson said. It has also grown from 55 employees in June 2009 to between 140 and 150, Patterson said Tuesday — and PV Powered continues to hire.

“We’re continuing to staff up and grow out,” Patterson said.

That growth has included some difficulties. PV Powered was losing money, according to government documents, but in March, Colorado-based Advanced Energy Industries announced it would buy PV Powered.

Advanced Energy, a publicly traded company, makes film and power-related products used in the semiconductor, flat-panel display, data storage and solar panel industries.

It entered the solar inverter market three years ago, and the acquisition of PV Powered helped it grab the top spot in North American market share for its solar inverters for the first half of this year, Advanced Energy announced in September.

In July, Advanced Energy added a second shift to its Fort Collins inverter plant, and earlier this month the company said it would expand operations into Canada.

PV Powered workers have been cranking, too.

“We basically are now working seven days a week in certain areas of production to keep up with demand,” Patterson said.

The company continues to fill out its plant on Brinson Boulevard, and a project to add about 12,000 square feet of assembly area and 50,000 square feet of warehouse space continues, he said.

Patterson and some other administrative employees also continue to work out of modular buildings, and PV Powered recently received permission from the city of Bend to add a couple more.

While production hums inside the plant, ground-breaking research goes on outside, in a growing field of solar panels where the company is developing technology to allow solar-power systems to better interact with utilities.

PV Powered led one of 12 teams that entered the Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems program in 2008, and last month, the federal government selected the PV-Powered team, and three others, to advance to the third round of the program, which brings an additional $2.4 million for PV Powered’s work.

“It gives us kind of a world-class solar research facility,” Patterson said.

More information

Descriptions of job openings at PV Powered can be found on the careers page of the company website, www.pvpowered.com. Résumés can be sent to: Humanresources@pvpowered.com or faxed to 541-312-3840.