Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

• Popular Technical Papers

  • Photovoltaic Fab Managers’ Forum Review
  • Photovoltaic industry 2009: a journey into uncertainty
  • Overview of automation in the photovoltaic industry
  • Thin-film CIGS starts to come of age
  • CIGS, CdTe thin-film PV equipment sector emerges, standardization remains elusive

• Featured Technical Papers

  • Comparison of different ceramic Al-doped ZnO target materials
  • Understanding the role of abrasives used in the multi-wire sawing process
  • Achievements and challenges in two-step metallization processes for crystalline silicon solar cells
  • Characterization and monitoring technologies for CIGS
  • Laser-assisted selective emitters and the role of laser doping

Until recently, Solyndra had been one of the stealthiest thin-film photovoltaics operators, its glistening, prominently logoed headquarters building reminding tech-savvy commuters plowing up and down the I-880 corridor near Fremont, CA, of how little they knew about the company. But Solyndra has finally let the sunshine in and come out of the closet – even if it hasn’t quite changed some of its stealthy ways. After a well-planned media and analyst rollout, the public knows that for this copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide (CIGS) thin-film PV manufacturer, the world – or at least its solar-module form factor – is not flat. Like many TFPV purveyors, Solyndra loves glass as a substrate, but the company’s meter-long CIGS-coated cylindrical modules look like a fluorescent light-bulb tube, not just another rectangular slab of the smooth stuff.

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