The Energy Blog

Thin Film Solar - First Solar

Thin film solar is becoming an increasingly important segment of the solar industry. Thin-film solar cells consist of layers of active materials about 10 µm thick compared with 200- to 300-µm layers for crystalline-silicon cells. Some sixty companies have announced to start thin film production by 2010, and EuPD Research estimates that by then, the production output will amount to 3.5 GW. According to the EIA, in 2006 thin film represented a 30% share of the of the 337,268 Wp of photovoltaic cells shipped by the U.S. solar industry, as compared to 12% in 2004.  in 2007 total solar (including solar thermal) represented less than 1% of the total of all renewable energy [including biomass (53%), hydroelectric (36%), geothermal (5%) and wind (5%)] which in turn represented just 7% of total energy consumption in the U.S.  Cadmium telluride PV (CdTe PV) is the only thin film photovoltaic technology to surpass crystalline silicon PV in the marketplace, in terms of lower system price, for a significant portion of the PV market.

First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR), producer of Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) PV modules, is the largest manufacturer of thin film solar modules, expanding manufacturing capacity to an expected 735 MW in 2008; and with additional plants under construction, First Solar will bring total expected capacity to more than 1 GW by the end of 2009. 

At the end of 2007, over 300 MW of First Solar PV modules had been installed worldwide and First Solar expects to ship 420 to 460 MW of PV modules in 2008.

Nanosolar Ships First Panels

In one of the most significant announcements in renewable energy for the year Nanosolar, producer of CIGS solar cells made using nanoparticle ink and roll-printing technology, announced that it has shipped its first product and received their first check from product revenue. They are already sold out for the next 12 months and are working to scale their production capacity as fast as possible. The advent of low cost thin film cells, that according to Nanosolar will be able to be produced sold for $0.99 per Watt, should mean that low cost solar can be produced at the lowest cost ever and can be produced at sites that are more distributed than from thermal solar. When this cost is achieved, it will mean that solar is competitive with all other forms of power production and only geographical limitations -- lack of sun -- will limit its proliferation -- and of course the problem of storage of energy.  This moves the development of energy storage technologies to the top of the list of priorities for renerwable energy technologies, where it should have been for some time. It has 647,000 sq ft of manufacturing capability in the U.S. and Germany. 430. ,000 Mw of capacity per year in CA according to this CNBC video. Could this be the begining of the end of all other forms of solar power.

In the December 18 Nanosolar Blog Martin Roscheisen, CEO of Nanosolar writes:

Our product is defining in more ways I can enumerate here but includes:

- the world’s first printed thin-film solar cell in a commercial panel product;

- the world’s first thin-film solar cell with a low-cost back-contact capability;

- the world’s lowest-cost solar panel – which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt;

- the world’s highest-current thin-film solar panel – delivering five times the current of any other thin-film panel on the market today and thus simplifying system deployment;

- an intensely systems-optimized product with the lowest balance-of-system cost of any thin-film panel – due to innovations in design we have included.

Today we are announcing that we have begun shipping panels for freefield deployment in Eastern Germany and that the first Megawatt of our panels will go into a power plant installation there.

Sharp to Up Thin-film Solar Cell Capacity

Sharp Corp (OTC: SHCAY (ADR) ), the worlds largest producer of solar cells, announced on Thursday it would invest 22 billion yen ($200 million) to increase capacity for thin-film solar cells at its Katsuragi Plant (shown left, Nara Prefecture, Japan) from the current level of 15 MW (megawatts) to 160 MW (160,000 kW) per year by October 2008.

Thin-film solar cells are fabricated by depositing thin layers of silicon on a glass substrate. This structure enables a dramatic reduction in the amount of silicon raw material used to approximately one hundredth the amount used in conventional crystalline solar cells, and also provides for shorter production process times and lower costs from manufacturing economies of scale.

Sharp began mass production of tandem thin-film solar cells with a tandem-junction structure (amorphous silicon and microcrystalline silicon) in September 2005. Now, Sharp is making thin-film solar cells with a triple-junction structure, which consists of two amorphous layers and a microcrystalline layer. With these triple-junction thin-film solar cells, Sharp has achieved module conversion efficiencies of approximately 10%, at the industry's top level.

According to this earlier announcement Sharp was to increase annual production capacity for solar cells at its Katsuragi Plant to 600 MW by November 2006, the world's highest. This current announcement would bring the total to 765 MW.

This Reuters story reported that Sharp had previously announced plans to ramp up its thin-film capacity with a new plant in Sakai in Osaka prefecture to go online by March 2010 and eventually target output of 1,000MW per year at this facility.

Sharp also has UK production capability of 220MW.

First Solar Posts Record Sales, Receives Substantial Contracts and Announces New Manufacturing Capacity

Producer of CdTe thin-film PV solar modules, First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq:FSLR) announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 29, 2007. Quarterly revenues were $159.0 million, up from $77.2 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2007 and up from $40.8 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2006. Net income for the three months ended Sept. 30 rose about ten times to $46 million, or 58 cents a share, from an adjusted year-ago profit of $4.3 million, or 6 cents a share.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast earnings of 19 cents a share and revenue of $120 million, on average.

Based on these results First Solar rallied 34% on Thursday to a new closing high of 230 after increasing from about $125 to $150 in the month of October, but retreated to $207 on Friday.

This is real evidence that Wall Street is taking Solar seriously. Their manufacturing capacity for a non-silicon solar cell producer must be among the highest, if not the highest.  Thin-film technology is where the action is going to be. See Nanomarkets Reports on TFPV for another opinion.

Additionally it announced that it has entered into new long term module supply agreements with a subsidiary of international investment and funds and asset manager Babcock & Brown, and Ecostream Switzerland GmbH, a subsidiary of Econcern BV.The new agreements expand contracted module volume by a total of 557MW, allowing for additional sales of approximately $1 billion at an assumed exchange rate of $1.30/E1.00 over the period of 2008 to 2012.

To meet the demand expected from the sales contracts, First Solar's board of directors approved, on Nov 5, the construction of a fourth manufacturing plant in Malaysia with four production lines with an annual nameplate production capacity of 120 Megawatts, bringing the total number of production lines to 16 for the Malaysian Manufacturing Center. The new plant is scheduled to start production in the second half of 2009 and will be built adjacent to the three previously announced plants currently under construction in Malaysia.

First Solar operates manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Germany with total annual nameplate production capacity of 210MW and is currently constructing three additional manufacturing plants in Malaysia with total annual nameplate production capacity of 360MW. Apparently this newest announcement is in addition to the 120MW announced on Sept 27. This expansion will bring the company's total annual nameplate production capacity to 690MW upon completion of all announced projects by the end of 2009.

HelioVolt Announces Closing of its Series B Funding for $101 Million

HelioVolt Corporation, a producer of highly-efficient thin film solar products, announced the closing of its Series B funding round for a total of $101 million. This makes it the largest clean-tech venture capital financing on record according to Matt Marshall of Venture Beat. The additional funding will be used to accelerate scale-up and global deployment of HelioVolt’s proprietary manufacturing process for Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) building-integrated solar products.

HelioVolt Corporation was founded in 2001 to develop and market new technology for applying thin film photovoltaic coatings to a variety of substrates including conventional construction materials. The company’s  process, based on rapid semiconductor printing, was invented by HelioVolt founder Dr. Billy J. Stanbery, an eminent expert within the international PV community in the materials science of CIGS and related compound semiconductors.  FASST™ is a low-cost, flexible manufacturing process for CIGS synthesis and is protected by both nine issued US patents and by numerous global patents pending.

Air Products and Konarka to Work on Transparent Solar Modules for Building Applications

Air Products, Allentown, Pa, (NYSE:APD) and Konarka Inc. of Lowell, Mass., have been selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Advanced Technology Program (ATP) to conduct research and development on transparent, flexible solar modules, using organic pohotovotaic technology (OPV), for windows and other building integrated applications. The $4.7 million award for the $9.6 million project is part of NIST’s Advanced Technology Program which looks to foster new technology developments by U.S. companies.

The technology will be suitable for use in windows capable of controlling transparency for privacy, regulating the wavelength of light passing through for energy conservation, and for aesthetics. Since the materials are capable of harvesting indoor as well as outdoor light, the solar modules can be integrated into building sensors, battery chargers, lighting and displays, and wireless security monitoring systems.

Miasolé Raises $50 million, Has Started Production

Thin-film solar-cell maker Miasole, the Santa Clara, CA, USA start-up which makes CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenium) solar cells, has raised $50 million more in venture capital in a fourth round of financing.

According to Venture Beat, the company says it has started shipping its cells to its first two customers, . . . both in China. The company assembles its solar modules in Shanghai.

Another Venture Beat article reported:

Miasolé is one of a handful of players producing solar technology based on CIGS materials. These companies, which include Nanosolar, HelioVolt and Konarka (and Honda) are all racing to be first to market. Nanosolar made waves in June, when it announced that it would build the world's largest solar cell factory.

In an interview with VentureWire in May, [Chief Executive David] Pearce said Miasolé was in the process of building a production facility with 50 megawatts of capacity….So far, Miasolé has raised at least $58 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Firelake Strategic Technology Fund, Garage Technology Ventures and Nippon Kouatsu Electric Co. Pearce would not comment on new investors in the round.

In March DOE announced that it had funded Miasole, subject to negotiations. DOE funding for the first year of the project is expected to be $5,800,000, with approximately $20,000,000 available over three years if the team meets its goals. With the addition of the most recent $50 million this brings the total raised by Miasole to over $100 million, I don't know whether this is included in the $58 million total above.

Thin-Film solar Market Soaring

According to a new report from NanoMarkets LC the global market for thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) is forecast to reach $7.2 billion by 2015, compared to just over $1.0 billion today.

The report states that the market is being driven by the inherent advantages of TFPV. . . . most manufacturers are ramping up production capacity and several -- including First Solar, Fuji Electric, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Uni-Solar and G24i -- are building plants with more than 100 MW in capacity.

Some of the findings of the report include:

• PV could eventually account for as much as 20 percent of the U.S. market's energy needs.
• TFPV was only five percent of the entire PV market recently , but it is expected to account for 35 percent of the photovoltaics market by 2015.
• TFPV can be manufactured using simple printing or other R2R machines.  Printing TFPV has the potential for lowering capital costs by as much as 75 percent, reducing waste and increasing throughput.

It's not just climate and population that are bottlenecking

Some of you (at least one) have questioned my belief that resources of Gallium and Indium may limit the production of CIGS solar cells.  I ran across a forum that had a post on the same subject. An article, 'Earths natural wealth: an audit', that came from the NewScientistis Environment, 23 May 2007 was posted. One paragraph is as follows:

Take the metal gallium, which along with indium is used to make indium gallium arsenide. This is the semiconducting material at the heart of a new generation of solar cells that promise to be up to twice as efficient as conventional designs. Reserves of both metals are disputed, but in a recent report René Kleijn, a chemist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, concludes that current reserves "would not allow a substantial contribution of these cells" to the future supply of solar electricity. He estimates gallium and indium will probably contribute to less than 1 per cent of all future solar cells - a limitation imposed purely by a lack of raw material. ...  read more

Suntech Begins Construction of Thin-film Facilities

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP), China's largest manufacturers of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules, recently announced that it has begun construction on a thin film R&D and manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. The first phase of the new plant is expected to begin operation in 2008 reaching 50MW of thin film solar cell production capacity in 2009.

Suntech's thin film module production will be based on technology that deposits amorphous and micro-crystalline silicon thin film on glass substrate. The product will use less than 2% of the silicon required to manufacture equivalent crystalline silicon PV products. Suntech currently projects that the thin film modules will have a solar conversion efficiency of 6% to 9% and an initial production cost of approximately $1.20 per watt (based on 6% solar conversion efficiency), which is forecasted to continue to decline as both production scale and conversion efficiencies increase. The thin film modules will be nearly 6 square meters in size, which would make the balance of system installation costs of Suntech's thin film solution significantly lower than other PV solutions.

"After having acquired MSK, one of the industry leaders in the building integrated photovoltaic products (BIPV) space, we were very pleased to see that there is both a strong and long term global sales market for these products, especially thin film PV modules. We plan to combine our thin film product with MSK's BIPV product thereby capturing a greater portion of the PV value chain in a higher margin, higher ASP and higher value added product segment," said Dr. Zhengrong Shi Suntech's Chairman and CEO.

Suntech recent letter of intent with U.S.-based Open Energy to further BIPV initiatives is intended to expand BIPV sales of each company which will be furthered by Suntech's thin film initiatives. As part of the collaboration, Suntech will manufacture Open Energy's SolarSave(R) PV Tiles and jointly promote BIPV products in the North American market.

Expect stiff competition from this rapidly growing producer. to reiterate from a recent post: Last year, China passed the United States to become the world’s third largest producer of the cells—trailing only Germany and Japan.

Method for Cheaper Quantum Dots

Research by Michael Wong (left) and Rice University scientists at Rice's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN), today revealed a breakthrough method for producing molecular specks of semiconductors called quantum dots, a discovery that could clear the way for better, cheaper solar energy panels.

Quantum dots interact with light in unique ways, to give off different-colored light or to create electrons and holes, due partly to their tiny size, partly to their shape and partly to the material they're made of. Rice scientists have developed a new chemical method for making four-legged cadmium selenide quantum dots, which previous research has shown to be particularly effective at converting sunlight into electrical energy.

DOE Selects 13 Projects for Solar Technology Development

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Samuel W. Bodman on February 8 announced the selection of 13 industry-led solar technology development projects for negotiation for up to $168 million (FY’07-’09) in funding, subject to appropriation from Congress.  These projects will help significantly reduce the cost of producing and distributing solar energy.  As part of the cost-shared agreements, the industry-led teams will contribute more than 50 percent of the funding for these projects for a total value of up to $357 million over three years. These cooperative agreements, to be negotiated, will be the first made available as part of President Bush’s Solar America Initiative (SAI), a component of his Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI), announced in his 2006 State of the Union Address. 

These projects enable the projected expansion of the annual U.S. manufacturing capacity of PV systems from 240 MW in 2005 to as much as 2,850 MW by 2010, representing more than a ten-fold increase.  Such capacity would also put the U.S. industry on track to reduce the cost of electricity produced by PV from current levels of $0.18-$0.23 per kWh to $0.05 - $0.10 per kWh by 2015 – a price that is competitive in markets nationwide.

Moser Baer to Build Worlds Largest Thin Film Fab

Moser Baer India Ltd (Bombay: 517140.BO) announced that it would set up the world's largest thin-film solar fab to achieve new cost benchmarks. It has entered into a technology partnership with the US-based Applied Materials, Inc, the global leader in nano manufacturing technology solutions for the electronics industry.

"The company will start with a capacity of 40 MW, which will be increased to 200 MW by 2009. With this initial capacity, we are expecting a turnover of 100 million dollar annually," company's CFO Y B Mathur said.

The modules will use glass panels that are four times bigger than today's largest solar panel substrates, driving down panel production and solar electricity costs.

The unit for making thin films would be commercially operational by March 2008 and the construction will begin next week, Managing Director Deepak Puri said.

$3.00/watt, Lowest Price PV Modules

Aten Solar Promises Lowest Cost Per Watt for PV Modules
Press Release from Aten Solar, Bradley Beach, NJ, February 23, 2007

In January 2007, Aten Solar Corp, ... announced the commercial sale of their 42 watt a-si [amorphous silicon] modules for $3.00/watt. According to the March pricing survey's conducting by solarbuzz.com and ecobusinesslinks.com, these are the lowest PV modules on the market today. Despite the low initial power yields, thin-film photovoltaic products are becoming highly regarded for their better temperature coefficients resulting in a greater percentage of rated power production at higher ambient temperatures, produce more power on cloudy days in low light conditions, and do not experience broken connections due to inter-cell contact failure. ...

From their website:

Aten Solar ATPV-42 Solar Modules Description: 42 Watt Amorphous Silicon Solar Module

In lots of 1,Your Price: $120.00 [42 watts, equals $2.86 per watt]
In lots of 32, Your price: $4032 [1344 watts, equals $3.00 per watt]

View Details

Daystar Obtains Bridge Financing

DayStar Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: DSTI), the early developer of CIGS solar cells, who The Energy Blog has reported on previously, has raised a $5mm bridge loan from a group of six investors, Millennium Partners being the largest funder. The money will help carry the company while it raises significantly more capital to be used for the building of a production line in Malta.

According the Albany Times Union,the Halfmoon, NY-based solar cell manufacturer is seeking as much as $30 million for a new manufacturing facility in Malta but has said it needs funding just to keep operating past the first quarter of this year.

A new manufacturing facility is key to DayStar's business plan. The company lost nearly $15 million through the first nine months of 2006 and needs increased manufacturing capability to boost sales and turn a profit.

Founder John Tuttle, who brought the company from California to Saratoga County in 2004, was replaced as CEO by Stephan DeLuca in November. Randolph A. Graves, Jr., a member of DayStar’s board of directors since October 2003, was elected by the board of directors to serve as Chairman of the Board, replacing Tuttle, who will remain a member of the board until the next annual meeting.  Tuttle resigned as Chief Development Officer of DayStar Technologies, Inc. to pursue other opportunities. The company is operating without a chief financial officer.

Thanks to Rob Day of Cleantech Investing for the tip

This financing and changes in corporate structure confirm my suspicions that the company was suffering financial problems.  It would be a shame to see this innovating company not to be able to succeed.

Sharp Increases Efficiency of Thin Film Cells

Sharp Develops Mass-Production Technology for Triple-Junction Thin-Film Solar Cells

Dramatic Improvement in Conversion Efficiency, Mass Production to Begin in 2007

Sharp press release, Jan 24, 2007

Sharp Corporation has successfully developed mass-production technology for stacked triple-junction thin-film solar cells by turning a conventional two-active-layer structure (amorphous silicon plus microcrystalline silicon) into a triple-junction structure with amorphous silicon (two active layers) and microcrystalline silicon (single active layer). This new architecture boosts cell conversion efficiency from 11% to 13% and module conversion efficiency from 8.6% to 10%. Mass production is slated to begin in May 2007 at Sharp’s Katsuragi Plant in Nara Prefecture. ...

Normally, the shift from a two-layer structure to a three-layer structure would demand an increase in production equipment, but these newly developed thin-film solar cells can be fabricated on the same equipment as conventional tandem (two-layer) cells. Consequently, the shift to multiple active layers enables increases in conversion efficiencies and thus a lower price per watt without the need for expensive, large-scale equipment. ...

In a separate press release they announced that they were doubling the capacity of their UK facility to 22o MW.

Thus the efficiency and cost of PV solar is being incrementally reduced by the worlds largest producer of solar cells. This probably indicates that they will eventually shift more of their production to thin-films cells.

Nanosolar Aquires Manufacturing Facilities

PALO ALTO, California - December 12th, 2006 - Nanosolar Inc., a startup CIGS solar cell company, today announced that it has selected manufacturing sites located in California and in Germany. With these two new sites, Nanosolar now has the capability to utilize up to 647,000 square feet for its cell and panel manufacturing as well as research and development and regional company headquarters.

Nanosolar selected a former Cisco manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, above, as its U.S. site and a facility in the Berlin capital region as its European site.

What’s different about Nansolar’s technology is that it does not make use of silicon crystals, which is how 90% of the world’s solar energy is currently produced, rather it uses Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) cells, which do not depend on the short supplies of silicon that have plagued most of the solar cell industry.

Shell/Saint-Gobain to Produce CIS Solar Panels

Shell Erneuerbare Energien GmbH ('Shell') and Saint-Gobain Glass Deutschland GmbH, have announced a joint venture to begin solar power panel manufacturing based on advanced CIS (copper indium di-selenide) technology. The joint venture was recently approved by the European Commission.

The new entity AVANCIS KG will commence construction of the production facilities with operations likely to commence in 2008. The initial annual capacity of the plant will be 20 MW  with options for rapid expansion. The joint venture will combine Shell's CIS technology expertise, supported by eight years of CIS marketing experience, with Saint-Gobain's global and in-depth know-how of glass processing and building material manufacturing.  Graeme Sweeney, Shell's Executive Vice-President of Renewables, Hydrogen and CO2 said: "Based on our R&D experience in Munich, where the laboratory line delivered record 13.5% efficiency, we believe this facility can achieve industry-leading performance amongst thin-film technologies." This is another effort trying to capitalize on the shortage of silicon with a thin-film technology that may be superior in cost to silicon, but which would have had a much harder time cracking into the market were it not for the silicon shortage. CIS is another solar cell technology with advantages very similar to CIGS technology.  Earlier this year Shell sold its silicon cell facilities to concentrate their efforts on CIS.

Honda Joins CIGS Solar Cell Producers

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. announced plans to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary, Honda Soltec Co., Ltd., which will produce and sell CIGS thin film solar cells independently developed by Honda. The CIGS cell uses about 50% less energy than is used in producing crystal silicon solar cells. A new facility will become operational in fall 2007, at the site of Honda’s Kumamoto factory, with an annual capacity of 27.5 megawatts.

The next-generation solar cell to be produced and sold by Soltec was developed by Honda Engineering Co., Ltd., the production engineering subsidiary of Honda. Using CIGS technology reduces the amount of energy consumed during the manufacturing process by approximately 50% compared to what is required to produce conventional crystal silicon solar cells. This makes the new solar cell more environmentally-friendly by reducing the amount of CO2 generated from the production stage.

Q-Cells AG to invest in CIGS Thin-Film Technology

Q-Cells AG (OTC: QCLSF), the world's second-largest manufacturer of solar cells, is investing in CIGS thin-film technology to complement its current technology portfolio. Q-Cells is joining forces with Solibro AB from Uppsala, Sweden, to set up a joint venture under the name of Solibro GmbH, in which Q-Cells will hold a share of 67.5%.

Solibro GmbH will commercialize the copper indium gallium di-selenide (CIGS) thin-film technology developed in Sweden by Solibro AB. For this purpose there are plans to build an initial factory in Thalheim, which will have an annual production capacity of 25 to 30 MWp.

CIGS technology has several benefits:

• It does not require any silicon
• It has the potential of very high module efficiencies, compared to other thin film technologies, exceeding 12% in industrial production.
• The aesthetic appearance of the black modules also makes them well suited for integration into the facades and roofs of buildings.

ECD Ovonics Reports Quarterly Results

Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD Ovonics) (Nasdaq: ENER) reported that its wholly owned subsidiary United Solar Ovonic, producer of thin-film amorphous solar cells, had operating income of $1.5 million on revenues of $23.9 million, 88% of ECD's total income, in the first quarter of fiscal 2007, ended Sept 30, 2006, as compared to operating income of $1.7 million on revenues of $19.4 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2006. The company as a whole reported a net loss of $2.3 million (or $0.06 per share) on revenues of $27.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2007, as compared to a net loss of $6.5 million (or $0.22 per share) on revenues of $23.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2006.

The Company's portfolio of alternative energy solutions includes Ovonic thin-film amorphous solar cells, modules, panels and systems for generating solar electric power; Ovonic NiMH batteries; Ovonic hydride storage materials capable of storing hydrogen in the solid state for use as a feedstock for fuel cells or internal combustion engines or as an enhancement or replacement for any type of hydrocarbon fuel; and Ovonic fuel cell technology.

THIN-FILM SOLAR

United Solar Ovonic flexible triple-junction thin-film material, shown above, is made on proprietary high-output football field-sized continuous web roll-to-roll manufacturing machines similar to those used in newspaper production.