Scheuten Solar Technology, the Dutch solar module and glass manufacturer, has announced an order for Bürkle’s Ypsator laminator, which will increase the company’s capacity by an estimated 50%.
The machine has a surface area of 1700 x 2200mm, a length of 17m and width of 7.5m working with six openings, and is designed for production of 12 solar modules per cycle. This corresponds to an annual capacity of approximately 50MWp. The investment volume including the conveying equipment is €1.6 million.
The multiopening technology has enabled Scheuten to double its production capacity using a Ypsator lamination line that only requires 30% of the surface of a traditional single-opening laminator.
Dagmar Metzger, product manager of the Black Forest line manufacturer, said, “The Ypsator operates with a specified cycle time per module of 90 seconds. Consequently, every one and a half minute a crystalline solar module is produced in the line.”
The two-stage Ypsator is equipped with a hot press and a cooling press. During the lamination step, a membrane presses solar modules made of glass, a solar cell and foil with a pressure of up to 900 mbar. The line reaches a maximum operating temperature of up to 180°C.
Bürkle engineers and service engineers have had to define and connect the interfaces to the precedent and subsequent machines, one of which is the stringer which links the individual solar cells to electric circuits fully automatically.
The very exact temperature distribution and its reproducible processes determine this fully automatic lamination process. This means that the machine can create the required parameters such as vacuum, pressure and temperature in narrow tolerance ranges and with a very accurate repeat accuracy in each cycle.
