Solar Fields LLC, Perrysburg, is being bought by Q-Cells AG, of Bitterfeld-Wolfen in Germany. The local firm, with offices at 12900 Eckel Junction Rd., has just nine employees who focus primarily on research. Its chief accomplishment, however, is that it has developed machinery for the mass production of a new style of solar panels that hold promise of making energy from sunlight as cheap as that produced from fossil fuels.

Solar Fields, like First Solar Inc., is an outgrowth of solar-energy ventures of Toledo industrialist and glass-manufacturing pioneer Harold McMaster. Solar Fields' patents, other property, and employees will transfer to a new subsidiary, Calyxo USA Inc.

Q-Cells has grow rapidly, with production up 42 percent in the first half of 2007 and annual revenues expected to reach $1.2 billion by the end of the year. It is the world's second-largest manufacturer of solar panels, although its primary expertise is in traditional technology. Recently, it has made investments in a number of promising new "thin-film" manufacturing methods, including those used by the Perrysburg firm.

Solar Fields' early work was at a business incubator at the University of Toledo, which operates one of the nation's leading centers for research on solar-energy technology. "Solar Fields has made some impressive accomplishments in terms of low-cost" manufacturing methods, said Robert Collins, director of UT's Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization.