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On the occasion of the grand-opening ceremony of its manufacturing facility in Mississippi, thin-film PV company Stion also announced that the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has verified 14.1% conversion efficiency for its monolithically integrated CIGSSe modules manufactured at its San Jose headquarters facility.
“Achieving 14.1% efficiency over a large area is indicative of the exceptional process control and uniformity delivered by Stion’s technology, and also speaks to the continued improvement potential for CIGS-based technologies to meet the DOE SunShot goal of price parity by the end of this decade,” noted Rommel Noufi, NREL’s lead researcher for thin-film PV technologies.
The new Hattiesburg, MS, factory will roll out production of the 65 X 165cm copper-indium-gallium-sulfur-(di)selenide panels on the initial 100MW line later this year.
The fab, which is said to be the first thin-film solar factory in the Southeastern US, will deliver more than 1,000 jobs and $500 million of investment over the next six years, the company said. The first phase of the project will entail more than $100 million of investment and 200 direct jobs in 2011 and 2012.
Since announcing the Hattiesburg site in January, Stion has hired 100 employees locally and implemented recruiting and training programs with Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi.
”Our partnership with the state of Mississippi and the city of Hattiesburg has been a tremendous driving force behind our manufacturing scale-up,” said Chet Farris, president/CEO of Stion. “Our local employees and partners have worked hard to start up this facility on an extremely fast timeline, and we are excited to expand our US manufacturing presence in this world-class location.”
