Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

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 Technologies India Limited (PVTIL), a subsidiary of Moser Baer India Limited (MBIL), has successfully completed the testing and validation of a process that will enhance the stable efficiency of its single-junction amorphous-silicon thin-film module from 6% to 7.3%.

Magnolia Solar has received a US$1 million award from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). This award is to develop advanced thin-film solar cells in partnership with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany.

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.

Portland General Electric is expanding its solar energy resources with a new 2.4MW rooftop project. Once complete, this will be the largest rooftop solar project in the Pacific Northwest. PGE will partner with the U.S. Bank, ProLogis, and several Oregon companies on the project.

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.

Cylindrical thin-film PV manufacturer Solyndra has signed a new distribution agreement with Allied Building Products, a leading U.S. distributor of roofing, solar and other building products and materials. Allied will be the CIGS solar company's first North American distributor.