Features

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition held in Valencia, Spain last week was one of the best events I have attended in over 15 years of attending trade shows in most parts of the world.

Product Briefing Outline: Coveme SpA’s new ‘dyMat PYE’ backsheet material is used to prevent electrical hazards and to grant high vapour barrier, thus avoiding power loss during the expected lifetime of the solar module. Coveme, in co-operation with DuPont Teijin Films, has developed a high grade PET inner layer with a lifetime five times longer than traditional polyester. Traditional solutions are multiple layer backsheets with fluoropolymers on the air side, polyester (PET) in the middle, and a third layer towards the cell side. Most of the job is done by the polyester film that must be protected by an outer layer versus the air side.

Product Briefing Outline: Applied Materials has introduced the ‘Applied E3’ advanced equipment and process control solution, intended to be a comprehensive factory automation (FA) software package for improving the productivity and reducing the costs of semiconductor, flat panel display and photovoltaic solar cell manufacturing. The modular packages utilize proprietary algorithms that are claimed to boost process capability by >30 percent, reduce unscheduled downtime, and shorten cycle time to achieve up to a 20 percent increase in overall equipment effectiveness. Applied Materials said the system has already been employed by multiple major manufacturers and is currently being used in volume production.

Product Briefing Outline: SAFC Hitech has introduced the ‘EpiVapor’, a metalorganic vapor phase distribution system for compound semiconductor manufacturing. EpiVapor is designed to eliminate the need for localized tool bubblers and TCUs by delivering vapors from highly volatile and sensitive pyrophoric liquids directly to MOCVD systems. 

Product Briefing Outline: Honeywell has developed a new material called ‘PowerShield’ PV325, which is designed to provide greater levels of protection to photovoltaic solar cells and modules that are located in more hostile environments. The material is UV-, moisture- and weather-resistant, and designed to also withstand the electrical load produced by the modules, which can operate at up to 1,000 volts of electricity. The material was developed primarily for rigid PV modules, which are specifically designed to feed power into a utility or local power grid.

It is a tale of two strategies when dealing with the U.S. solarmarkets, be they consumer or business markets. Both Akeena Solar andFirst Solar have announced their first quarter financial resultsrecently. The scale of each company is worlds apart and theirapproaches to a growing market segment are at polar opposites, and itshows. These two companies cannot be directly compared; using these twocompanies is purely to highlight a growing trend among many solarcompanies of focussing on certain end-user segments of the solar market.

Product Briefing Outline: Surfect Technologies has launched Solargy, the industry’s first programmable plating computer for solar applications.  Capable of accommodating combinations of 125, 156 and 210mm size cells, Solargy’s Direct Energy Plating technology is claimed to offer significantly reduced plating costs, while improving manufacturing speed and yield.

Product Brief Outline: Sputtering Materials, Inc. is now offering high-density casted CIG (CuInGa) targets for thin film deposition in rotatable and planar form factors for thin film solar production. The casted targets offer high-density (99% +) materials that offer thin film technicians greater control and better material utilization in thin film deposition, physical vapor deposition and sputtering system processing. 

Not your average eBay item up for grabs, rather a piece of photovoltaictechnology history. Nanosolar, roll-to-roll Copper Indium GalliumDiselenide (CIGS) PV solar start-up, has put one of its first threeproduction line commercially-produced PV modules (Panel #2) up for saleon eBay with a $10,300 starting price!