It’s good to see more activity in Canada on the solar front. Sure, we’ve got Carmanah, Arise, and a handful of private players — such as Cyrium, as I’ve recently pointed out — but for a while there the small publicly traded stable we did have was shrinking, not growing. I’m referring, of course, to the stellar rise and spectacular fall of ATS’s Photowatt IPO.

I’m happy to see British Columbia-based Day4 Energy Inc. taking it public. The company was co-founded and is led by veteran Canadian businessman John S. MacDonald, best known as the co-founder and 30-year CEO of aerospace pioneer MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates. Day4′s edge in the market is that it has developed a better way to connect solar PV cells to solar modules and each other. The company’s patented Day4 Electrode reduces the electrical resistance, by a factor of 10, of the material and process traditionally used to connect cells and assemble modules. It claims it has developed the highest efficiency polycrystalline solar panel on the market, with an efficiency of 14 per cent. The company’s electrode technology can also work with monocrystaline and thin-film cells, improving efficiencies and — most importantly — not increasing the cost of production.

“We’re really just at the beginning,” said MacDonald in an interview, adding that the new design approach opens up many possibilities for improving the look, cost and efficiency of solar panels. “We’re the only outfit that builds panels this way.”

Currently, the company only has 12 megawatts a year of capacity. With the IPO, which raised $100 million with an option to increase that to $115 million, the company plans to grow its capacity aggressively to 90 megawatts by the end of 2008. MacDonald says Day4 has secured 300 megawatts — or four years worth — of silicon supply from its suppliers and has a backlog of 100 megawatts worth of module orders. Currently, it is using standard cells provided by QCells and two other suppliers, but with increased volume it expects to start customizing its cell designs to improve energy densities even further.

It doesn’t plan to license the electrode technology — at least not yet — but MacDonald didn’t rule that out in the future. Commenting on the IPO, MacDonald said he’s happy with the outcome but not obsessed with that aspect of the business. “There was a lot of demand for the stock, even in a bad market, so I guess that’s a positive thing,” he said. “My own philosophy is that this company achieve its objectives. I don’t worry about the stock market too much. I just hope things go well.”

He emphasized there’s a lot of work still ahead to reach cost parity with the grid. “It is an this point an objective… Everybody else is going after it but we think we’ve got a better path to getting there.”

Now that’s refreshing. A solar company with something unique to offer that’s focused on hard work and steady progress. Under promise, over deliver? This appears to be Day4′s game plan.