The leaders of a new Atlanta-based company aim to spread their solar power cells to rooftops around the world. But Suniva founder Ajeet Rohatgi and Chairman and Chief Executive John Baumstark won't sell to the general public. Their solar cells, each roughly the size of a CD case but paper-thin, will go to manufacturers that will install them in big solar panels.

Because the technology is based on research Rohatgi has done at Georgia Tech, an arm of the university has a minority ownership stake in Suniva and rights to some royalties.

Alison Church/Special (ENLARGE)

Suniva chairman and CEO John W. Baumstark and Georgia Tech professor and founder of Suniva Ajeet Rohatgi are in business to develop and market high-efficiency cells to produce cheaper and cleaner power.

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The challenge, though, is bringing down the price of solar energy.

Sunlight is free, but steep upfront costs of buying and installing a solar power system can total $40,000 for a home. Even spreading the costs over the 30-year life of the system still leaves a cost per kilowatt hour that is two to four times what Americans pay on average to fossil fuel power companies, according to Rohatgi.

Suniva officials say they can reduce that disparity even before the federal government's goal of doing so by 2015.

In the meantime, they say they expect demand from people who are willing to pay more for solar power to avoid the environmental costs of other energy. They also see opportunity in nations such as Germany, Spain and South Korea, where government incentives allow people to sell excess solar energy to the power grid at a profit.

Q: How long had you been thinking about starting a company?

Rohatgi: I was not thinking about starting a company at all. I was kind of talked into it. I had no plans. NEA [venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates] came to me in 2006. ... They gave me a lot of business sense that I was not attuned to thinking.

Q: What did you know about business before you started this company?

Rohatgi: Very little. That's the reason I never started. I knew business but not the business of starting a company. I have been a professor all of my life, an engineer.

Q: How concerned were you that you might lose control of this thing?

Rohatgi: I don't think that occurred to me the way you are phrasing it. ... My biggest concern is 'Will I have the technology I would like to have, and how fast I can get there?' And that is still my concern. I would like to be at the place where I am far above most of the folks. And I'm not there.

Q: Mr. Baumstark, what concerns did you have about starting a business with an academic who might want to do things certain ways after 30 years of working at it?

Baumstark: The first thing for me — was Ajeet somebody I could work with? ... I found out we have a similar value structure. ... Winning is very important to me. And Ajeet is very competitive and wants to win from a technical level. ... We both see the impact this business can have not just making our investors money, but it can have a real impact on the world. That was something that was important to me. I haven't done that in any other company.

Q: What are the biggest disagreements the two of you have had?

Baumstark: We haven't had many disagreements. Honestly.

Rohatgi: I'm not sure I could come up with something like that.

Q: There must be something.

Baumstark: I haven't stepped into research and told him how to run research. And he hasn't tried to tell me how to run the business, either. Maybe that's why things have worked out.

Q: Did you two discuss how to talk with potential investors?

Rohatgi: One of things I'm criticized for is that sometimes I am more conservative than I need to be. ... I don't want to oversell something, but I'm also learning in this world you cannot be on the other side because you are underselling.

Q: Mr. Rohatgi, what surprised you most about starting a business?

Rohatgi: The speed with which things happen. I could not have imagined the company could raise $50 million within a few months. ... The financial part of this world is very surprising to me — how much money is out there to be invested in good ideas.

Q: You've talked about the importance of reducing costs. Neither Georgia nor the rest of the nation is usually considered the lowest-cost place for manufacturing.

Baumstark: Labor is a small component of this. Our manufacturing is pretty highly automated. One of the things we are very carefully guarding is our intellectual property. We want to keep that here.

Q: What do you think Suniva will look like 10 years from now?

Baumstark: In 10 years we would be in the billions in terms of revenue. We will be $100 million in 2009, so we better be [in the] billions in 10 years.

Q: What's the most important thing you are looking for in choosing a location in Cobb or Gwinnett for the manufacturing plant?

Baumstark: We have to be close to where we can attract the right engineers and the right scientists and in places where we can get the right skilled labor. People who have worked in high-tech manufacturing are important. And for our initial factory, we want to be close to Georgia Tech, close to the research facility.