Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

A global exclusive distribution agreement has been signed between Pioneer Materials and Matheson Tri-Gas that will enable Pioneer Materials to concentrate on production and product development of its range of CIGS (copper indium gallium selenium), CIS (copper indium di-sulphide) and other related thin film compounds, while speciality materials producer and distributor handles sales, distribution and customer services.

Filmetrics has opened two film thickness measurement application labs in Tainan, Taiwan and Munich, Germany. Each lab is tied into the Filmetrics support network, which provides immediate internet and voice response to Filmetrics customers.

PV Powered commercial inverters have been installed in a new office-building project in Lakewood, New Jersey.  Premier Power Renewable Energy completed the design, engineering and installation of the project, which also features new high-density CIGS thin-film cylindrical solar panels by Solyndra.

Eyelit has landed another customer for its solar PV manufacturing software--flexible CIGS thin-film module maker Ascent Solar. The PV company is using the suite to support the production ramp of its 30MW Fab 2 in Thornton, CO, which is slated to go live the end of March.

Nexcis, a start-up company specializing in the manufacturing of CIGS thin-film solar cells and modules from electrodeposition, has inaugurated a PV module production unit at STMicroelectronics' former six-inch fab in Rousset, France.

Ascent Solar has signed a strategic supply agreement with FTL Solar for a minimum purchase of US$6.5 million of high-efficiency, flexible CIGS PV two-meter and premier modules during a three-year contract period. Ascent Solar is scheduled to begin shipments to FTL Solar for market seeding of emerging market opportunities with their lightweight solar-integrated tensile fabric product line.

What has been Showa Shell Solar will soon be sporting a new name—Solar Frontier. The Japanese thin-film photovoltaics company will be making the brand change on April 1 as part of a plan to expand its global network and eventually hit a target of 1GW of sales per year of its copper-indium-selenide (CIS) modules to customers worldwide. The rebranded company will open offices in Northern California and Munich. A third factory, which will join the two existing production facilities in Japan with a nominal capacity of 100MW, will begin operations in Miyazaki in 2011. The price tag for the new 900MW fab has been reported to be around $1 billion.

Following-on from securing Advanced Green Technologies as a distributor of its rooftop CIGS technology, Solyndra has now tapped another Uni-Solar distributor in the name of California-based firm DC Power Systems. As with the AGT deal, no commercial details were provided by Solyndra.

centrotherm photovoltaics has posted preliminary financial results for 2009, highlighting strong revenue growth for the past three years and forecasted continued growth in 2010. The multi-market equipment and turnkey supplier posted revenue of €509.1 million in 2009, an increase of 35.9% compared to revenue of €374.7 million in 2008.

In the latest example of increasing CIGS conversion efficiencies, the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has confirmed that Global Solar Energy has achieved 13.2% aperture-area efficiency on a thin-film photovoltaic module integrated with flexible cell-strings from its copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide production line in Tucson, AZ.  CEO Jeff Britt told PV Tech that median efficiencies have risen above 11% on the production line and that the company plans to launch its BIPV product line this year. The latest numbers exceed the company's efficiencies announced in September 2009, when NREL said it had measured 15.45% total area conversion efficiencies for the individual cells, and Global Solar had cited record peak efficiencies at the time of 11.7% on its flexible stainless-steel cell strings and median efficiencies between 10 and 11%.