Silicon Valley manufacturer, Solexant, has announced a relaunch as Siva Power and a transition to focusing exclusively on CIGS thin-film PV technology.
The transition will see the company moving to high-volume manufacturing with the building of its first production line, a 300MW facility that it claims outmuscles other thin-film production lines threefold.
The company said after investigating several solar technologies, it had concluded that CIGS thin-film offered the most promise of achieving sub-US$0.40 per watt solar costs.
“Unlike silicon photovoltaics, our new approach provides a pathway to building the solar industry's 'factory of the future' with gigawatt production capacity, and the world's lowest cost in solar,” said company chief executive Brad Mattson.
“Two years of data-driven research and analysis has led us to pursue a co-evaporated CIGS via monolithic integration on glass technology.”
The company had initially been planning to build a 100MW cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film production line, but cancelled this after deciding to focus on what it saw as lower cost forms of production.
The rebranded company said CIGS was emerging as the best technology for the future, with the US and Japan both leading in its development and China’s Hanergy showing more interest in the technology.
Siva has appointed a specialist technical advisory board to lead its transition, headed up by CIGS technologist Dr. Markus E. Beck who will be chief technology officer. Other board members include Dr. Rommel Noufi, a CIGS thin-film expert who spent 33 years working on the technology at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Noufi said: “It has been frustrating to see CIGS technology breaking efficiency records for many years, but not see that technical success translate into success in the commercial arena. In Siva Power I see the technology, the team, and the technical and business leadership to bring CIGS to the scale it deserves. I'm excited to become an advisor to Siva and to help steer CIGS into the future.”
