Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

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.

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%.

Ascent Solar has received certification for its premier and two meter flexible CIGS modules from an independent laboratory using a variety of U.S. department of defense military ruggedization standards known as MIL-STD-810G.

Solar systems integrator Solis Partners has completed the fourth of six installations for Norkus Enterprises, operator of Foodtown supermarkets in Monmouth and Ocean counties in New Jersey. The combined rooftop system features Solyndra's CIGS PV panels and will be reportedly one of the largest installations of the thin-film company's tubular-module-based products in the United States.

Module manufacturer, MiaSolé, has started shipping CIGS thin-film modules from its California production facility. The company has now shipped its modules to 30 customer sites across Europe and the U.S.

MiaSolé has received ceritification of standards UL 1703 and IEC 61646 and 61730 for its 100 and 107W CIGS thin-film solar modules. The three certifications were given simultaneously. 

The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has validated conversion efficiencies of 14.1% for flexible copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide (CIGS) solar-cell materials produced on Ascent Solar’s 1.5MW commercial pilot line in Littleton, CO. The company’s internal testing shows active-area peak efficiencies for its full-size monolithically integrated CIGS-on-polyimide modules reaching 11.7%, with median efficiencies on the line averaging between 10.5 and 11%-plus, according to president/CEO Farhad Moghadam.