Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

Product Briefing Outline: Watlow has expanded the EZ-ZONE ST integrated controller family to include phase angle power switching and increased load current capabilities. The upgraded EZ-ZONE ST features single-phase solid-state relay output up from 40 to 75A and phase angle power switching with soft start to prevent high in-rush currents, load failure or blown fuses during solar cell thermal processing.

Product Briefing Outline: Craic Technologies has launched the 20/20 PV Microspectrometer, which is designed to measure UV-visible NIR-range transmission, absorbance, reflectance, and emission and fluorescence spectra of sample areas smaller than a micron in width. The thickness of thin films and colour spaces can also be determined. The 20/20 PV system is claimed to be the most powerful instrument from Craic Technologies.

Product Briefing Outline: Edwards has developed a new GXS dry pump designed to support pumping requirements for silicon ingot manufacturing and laminator applications in the solar industry. The GXS dry pump can operate on as little as 3.9kW of input power (depending on the pump version) and is said to use 57% less energy than competing piston pumps.

Product Briefing Outline: teamtechnik is launching a new, more compact STRINGER TT1200, which can solder solar cell strings at 1200 cycles per hour on just one track, making it one of the fastest in the world. teamtechnik has focused on the efficiency optimization of this stringer technology and has improved the price-performance ratio further. Other improvements include shorter set-up times and a shorter delivery time of a maximum of three months. The system’s power consumption and noise levels have also been reduced.

Product Briefing Outline: Huntsman has cooperated with industry partners to develop new materials and processing technologies that will enable actively temperature-controlled PV modules with increased efficiency. The 'Araldite' AY 4583/HY 4583 liquid system enables an energy-saving encapsulation process at low temperatures and eliminates the critical lamination process with EVA. The new technology is ideal for use in hot southern climates and deserts.

Product Briefing Outline: Critical Manufacturing’s cmNAVIGO 2.0 Solar Edition allows photovoltaic manufacturers to combine a highly flexible and pre-customized rich set of manufacturing execution and analytical solutions with tightly integrated quality tools. The MES software is designed to have a unique modeling versatility, enabling it to respond to the most demanding and complex scenarios in manufacturing plants.

Product Briefing Outline: Robert Bürkle has introduced a complete flexible Back End Line for the production of crystalline solar cell modules. The company claims it has the highest throughput per square meter when based on its stack lamination platform. The line is highly flexible with the line layout (straight /U-shape) accommodated, according to individual requirements.

Product Briefing Outline: Trumpf is offering user-oriented microprocessing lasers from the TruMicro Series 3000, 5000 and 7000 for an increasing number of applications for thin-film processes, including CIGS patterning steps.

Product Briefing Outline: The new Spartanics Laser Cutting Applications Laboratory for Materials Research enables PV product manufacturers to determine if their materials can be handled by modern laser die-cutting technologies. The lab allows those seeking to use rapidly advancing laser die-cutting technology for finishing solar panels and other solar products to send samples for engineering studies and analyses for evaluation.

Product Briefing Outline: a+f GmbH has introduced a new model within its SunCarrier series, the SunCarrier 120, which is a single-axis tracking system that permanently aligns the module surface with the current sun position via a vertical axis. This ensures an ideal angle of incidence for sunlight and provides an additional yield of 30% compared to fixed installations available on the market. Depending on the module type, an output of up to 24kWp can be installed on a module surface of around 120m².