Features

The 4th annual PV Industry Forum, forms the opening salvo of this years Intersolar conference and exhibition in Munich. Bringing together the great and the good of the PV industry, it gives the B2B big wigs a chance to mingle and “learn” before the main event starts on Thursday with the Intersolar Trade Fair.

Product Briefing Outline: ABB’s new IRB6640 cleanroom robot is designed to help the thin-film photovoltaic sector to improve productivity by lowering manufacturing costs, while at the same time raising production output. The new cleanroom version of the IRB6640 meets all necessary process and cleanroom specifications for the thin-film photovoltaic industry, according to ABB.

Product Briefing Outline: Enerize Corporation has developed a new design for PV modules using a proprietary transparent polymer material that is claimed to outperform glass conventionally used as a protective covering. The proprietary polymer material is highly transparent, and stable under UV and ionizing radiation exposure. The new highly transparent polymer material can be applied directly to the PV module surface at low temperatures, eliminating the need for the adhesives required with glass and some other polymers. Evaluation of the new Enerize polymer encapsulation materials has been carried out using PV modules that include up to five solar cells with a surface area of 72cm2 each.

The news that Q-Cells, the largest PV manufacturer in the world in 2007, will break ground on a major manufacturing complex in Mexicali, Mexico in 4Q08, marks several potential milestones for the emerging thin-film PV market.

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.

Silicon solar cell producers should forget about the polysilicon shortages, while thin-film companies need not worry about silane supplies. Not because constrained supply issues are expected to ease and material costs to finally lower over the next two years, but because a potentially bigger concern is looming!

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.

At the PV Fab Managers’ Forum in Dresden this week, IBM outlined its plans for partnering with the PV manufacturing industry to improve technology and manufacturing processes. Rainer Klaus Krause, IBM’s ISC Innovation Champion, presented to a high level audience of Fab managers and solar manufacturing executives the strategy to partner with manufacturers and technology providers to help the industry achieve price parity more quickly.