The new German Government didn’t spend much time after the recent election to propose changes in the FiT program above and beyond the planned yearly declines. Then under pressure from the PV industry and certain states, politicians became more conciliatory to less than ‘aggressive’ changes, even though it was never made clear what the degree of changes would inevitably be. However, with the increasing belief of a growing number of industry observers and players, PV installations in the country are set for record levels, far beyond what the new Government would accept under ‘reasonable’ growth.
Product Briefing Outline: Semilab SSM, a division of Semilab, has launched its newest member to the ‘NanoSRP’ family of metrology products. Designed for small and mid-tier sized semiconductor and solar cell manufacturers, the SRP Express 170 is a manual system that provides density and resistivity depth profiling using spreading resistance profiling technology (SRP).
Product Briefing Outline: Honeywell Electronic Materials has launched a new material called Honeywell SOLARC that improves the efficiency and power output of PV module. The new product is a transparent coating material that improves the light transmittance through the glass that covers the solar cells.
Product Briefing Outline: BASF and Schmid have together developed a new, contact-free laser transfer printing (LTP) process for metallizing the front and back of solar cells. At present, it is mainly the screen printing process that is used for metallization. The printer and paste system now developed by BASF and Schmid is based on a contact-free laser process and not only offers customers advantages with regard to handling, but also increases the efficiency of cell production.
The MegaSlate Solar roof system from 3S Swiss Solar Systems is a pioneering, architecturally aesthetic BIPV concept designed for new builds and roof retrofits.
On the surface (pun intended) there would seem to be of little interest or need to know more about the recent acquisition by Applied Materials of a small cap semiconductor equipment supplier, Semitool. The Montana-based wet processing specialist has been around for a long-time and perhaps because of where it is based, compared with many equipment suppliers clustered in Silicon Valley, it gets little attention in comparison. However, solar cell producers may well find that they get a knock on the cleanroom door soon from Applied, to discuss porous silicon processes and a wet processing tool called the ‘Raider.’
Product Briefing Outline: specializes in manufacturing and supplying cross-linking agents to compounders and manufacturers of PVM encapsulates. Cross-linking with organic peroxide initiators adds many product and performance advantages, chief of which is the improvement in stability of the encapsulate films produced for PV manufacturing. PV manufacturers rely on special formulation of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) that includes peroxides to achieve dimensional and UV stability through crosslinking.
Product Briefing Outline: LumaSense Technologies has launched its Mikron M7604F and M7604G thermal imaging cameras. The Mikron M7604 camera is a versatile, fully-radiometric camera with high-temperature functionality making it the perfect tool for preventive maintenance inspections, radiometric inspections of internal furnaces and (M7604F) or temperature measurements of glass surfaces (M7604G) for improving process control and product quality.
Product Briefing Outline: Groupo Clavijo has developed an advanced double-axis solar tracker specifically for the U.S. market using a patented hydraulic brake system in the azimuth movement. Miller Welding will manufacture and commercialize it in the United States, under a partnership agreement with Clavijo.
Product Briefing Outline: SOMONT, a subsidiary of 3S Industries AG, has had success with the RAPID stringer and lay-up systems for high throughput cell stringing in module production with capacity ranges of 10-40MW per year. However, a new stringing system, CERTUS, has been developed for production capacities from 50-100MW per year.
