If you consider yourself one of those master-of-minutiae types, always on the cutting edge of new ideas, science projects and technologies, take a look at what Intel is up to – not only in the solar-energy business, but also when it comes to the clever storage of memory.

Intel Corp. disclosed that an internal team has been working on technology for use in solar panels, and it is being spun off to form a new company.

The chip maker said SpectraWatt Inc. will make photovoltaic cells, the primary component in panels that use sunlight to generate electricity. It will receive $50 million in initial funding from a consortium including Intel's venture-capital arm, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Cogentrix Energy subsidiary, PCG Asset Management LLC's PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund, and Solon AG, a German solar-panel maker.

Silicon Valley companies are scrambling to jump on the clean-energy bandwagon. Applied Materials Inc., for example, is branching beyond machines for making chips to sell equipment for use in making photovoltaic cells. Chip maker Cypress Semiconductor Corp. spun off a maker of solar cells called SunPower Corp. that now has a market capitalization of about $7 billion.

Engineers in Intel's new-business-initiatives group in Oregon have been working on the effort for several years, led by Andrew Wilson, who will become SpectraWatt's chief executive. Mr. Wilson said the start-up's goal is to reduce the cost and improve the power-generating efficiency of solar cells that are made from silicon.

Silicon is in short supply, making its use more costly than other approaches, including "thin film" materials. But silicon-based cells capture more of the sun's energy per square meter than alternatives, Mr. Wilson said.

Electricity from solar panels is approaching price parity with other sources in some places, but it remains about twice as expensive on average, Mr. Wilson said. SpectraWatt's goal is average price parity in the U.S. in four years, he said. The company expects to break ground on a manufacturing and technology-development facility in Oregon this year, with first product shipments expected by mid-2009.

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