Thin-Film

Another CIGS thin-film PV manufacturer has garnered certification for its flexible modules. San Jose-based SoloPower has achieved IEC 61646 and 61730 approvals to go along with the UL 1703 it announced earlier this year, allowing the company to sell its rooftop-focused products in the U.S. and Europe. SoloPower claims to be the first among its peers to obtain both IEC certifications for its flex panels.

Despite the Japanese Government’s concerns over the legality of Ontario’s ‘local content’ feed-in tariff requirements, Sharp’s tandem-junction thin-film modules will be used by SunEdison for two solar parks, totalling 18.5MW, in Norfolk County, Ontario, Canada. The projects (SunE Sky Norfolk I and II) are a joint venture between SkyPower and the MEMC subsidiary, which actually started construction in March this year and is expected to be completed before year-end.

The Stuttgart-based researchers at Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg, Germany (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, ZSW) have demonstrated a CIGS solar cell conversion efficiency of 20.3%. The area of the world record cell is 0.5 square centimetres and surpasses their previous record of 20.1%, established in April 2010.

High-purity materials supplier 5N Plus has signed a long-term supply agreement with cadmium-telluride thin-film module producer Abound Solar. Under the terms of the deal, 5N Plus will provide CdTe compounds to be used in the manufacturing of Abound's PV panels.

Thin-film module manufacturing costs took a significant fall in the second quarter as First Solar continued to lead the PV industry in the lowest cost-per-watt race.

In a significant change of direction, Applied Materials has revealed that it will stop selling its turnkey a-Si thin-film technology under the SunFab name to potential new customers, shifting emphasis away from thin-film altogether and focusing on crystalline silicon (c-Si) and LED manufacturing equipment and technology.

Organic photovoltaics developer Solarmer Energy has achieved the highest conversion efficiency recorded so far for a plastic OPV champion cell—7.9%. The aperture-area test results, recently certified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, represent an improvement over independent exams conducted a few months ago at Newport Corp.’s Technology and Application Center’s PV Lab, where cell efficiencies of 7.6% and module efficiencies of 3.9% were recorded.

Allora Minerals has been busy, acquiring the remaining assets of OptiSolar, receiving preliminary approval to garner millions of Euro in grants for German projects, and getting shareholder approval to change its name to that of another company whose assets it's buying, EPOD Solar (ESI). The OptiSolar deal will bring the once-promising thin-film PV company's intellectual property and its manufacturing and R&D facilities in Northern California into ESI's portfolio.

DuPont and the U.S. Department of Energy will collaborate in a $9 million solar research program to develop ultrathin moisure-barrier material solutions for flexible thin-film photovoltaics. Some $3 million of the funding for the three-year effort comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with DuPont contributing the remaining $6 million.