New wind power capacity installed in the EU last year reached 9.3GW, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). Even though the solar sector seems sluggish in declaring its installed figures, just the official forecast numbers coming from Germany, Italy, France and Spain alone would result in over 10GW of PV installations in 2010.
Edwards has expanded its iXA family of magnetically-levitated turbomolecular pumps with the introduction of the STP-iXA2206 and STP-iXA3306 pumps. Developed for solar, glass coating, semiconductor and LCD etch applications, the iXA2206/iXA3306 pumps offer performance superior to that offered by earlier iXA family pumps.
2BG Srl has extended its product line with the complete automation of bussing soldering process in order to meet the high demand of quality production and throughput. The IC200AR is an in-line system that’s operates as a robotic workstation which solders bus ribbons to solar cell strings for completing the electrical interconnection of the module prior to lamination.
Atlumin Energy has begun fabricating monolithic `barking’ (dog bone) rotary molybdenum sputtering targets for solar thin-film module manufacturing. Barking targets offer superior material utilization, while monolithic targets offer higher density and higher purity than traditionally fabricated targets.
National Semiconductor has released the ‘SolarMagic’ ‘MYPVDATA’ Solar Operations Center (SOC). The software as a service (SaaS) offering helps users analyze data collected from the PV array by delivering information through an easy-to-use web-interface.
Enercon Industries Corporation is introducing the new ‘Plasma4’ in-line atmospheric plasma surface treatment system for the cleaning and functionalizing of roll-to-roll materials used for fabricating photovoltaic systems.
GT Solar International has announced the commercial release of the ‘DSS650,’ multi-crystalline ingot growth systems for the solar PV industry. The DSS650 can grow significantly larger silicon ingots averaging 625 kg - resulting in 25 percent more output.
There was a significant increase in the number of new products announced throughout the PV supply chain in 2010, compared to previous years. A key trend has been products focused on the utility-scale market, such as central inverters and technologies designed to cut the balance of system (BOS) costs for installations. In our review of the Top 10 most viewed products on the PV-Tech website, the diversity in the list is refreshing and covers a wide-range of subjects from solar cell metallization pastes to modules and inverters.
Evonik has introduced a highly transparent and also weathering-resistant barrier film based on polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) that can replace glass plates as a front cover.
Alan King of Canadian Solar notes that while the extension of the U.S. Treasury's 1603 cash grant program has positive implications for the solar industry in 2011 and beyond, there's much work still to be done to increase PV's percentage of the country's overall energy portfolio.
