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Tosoh says its new sputter targets add 1% to solar energy conversion

Tosoh says its new sputter targets add 1% to solar energy conversion

Credit: Tosoh SMD.

Tosoh SMD, a maker of the type of sputtering targets often used by photovoltaic manufacturers, says it has developed a new transparent conducting oxide target that can add a 1 percent gain to the solar conversion efficiencies of thin films.

According to a company news release, the new TCO targets (available in either indium tin oxide or aluminum zinc oxide flavors, with planar and rotary options) have been specially doped to have improved transparency and other optical properties. It says they “are highly transparent, especially in the visible to infrared range, and that feature high thermal stability, including under humid conditions … [and] enable the deposition of textured surfaces that feature enhanced light-trapping capability. Compared with thin films from conventional TCO targets, a single-junction thin film deposited by a Tosoh AZO TCO target in a silicon solar cell shows a one-point gain in conversion efficiency. Thin films, meanwhile, produced with Tosoh’s ITO TCO target achieve a similar gain in a copper indium gallium selenide-based solar cell.”

One CIGS expert seems to be happy with this. According to the release Makoto Konagai, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, says that “this invention will contribute to achieving the goal of 18% energy conversion efficiency with a focus on low-cost and large-scale production.”

Just to clarify, I think Konagai’s reference to 18% conversion efficiency is to volume-produced CIGS, not lab tests. The NREL reached a CIGS thin-film efficiency mark of 19.9 % back in 2008, and has confirmed that at least one manufacturer has commercial units available that reach the 15.5 % conversion level.

Despite some nifty technical developments, interest in thin-film makers, especially in the United States, has waned as processing and manufacturing prices for traditional silicon PV units has continued to fall.

Tosoh is hoping to attract worldwide customers who are interested in lowering their overall cost per watt of production. I suspect some of the company’s timing of this announcement may be linked to Europe’s “Thin Film Solar Summit” that starts March 3 in Berlin.

DOE commits to $1.45B loan for concentrating solar and $400M for thin solar

Today the Administration announced that the DOE agreed to guarantee large loans for two separate solar power equipment makers, Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing.

The Abengoa project involves using a $1.45 billion loan to build a 250 MW concentrating solar facility in Solana, Ariz.

“Abengoa Solar estimates that the Solana project will employ approximately 1,600 workers during the construction phase of the project and create over 80 skilled permanent jobs for the plant’s operation. Over 70 percent of the components and products used for Solana will be made in the United States. Two assembly factories will be constructed on the Solana site, and as a result of Solana’s large need for mirrors (over 900,000), a new mirror manufacturing facility will be sited just outside of the Phoenix area, contributing additional direct investment and adding more jobs to Arizona’s economy.

The Abound Solar $400 million loan will accelerate the first manufacturing of cadmium-telluride thin-film solar panels. The panels will be made in Longmont, Colo. and the other in Tipton, Ind. The company says it is aiming for a 840 MW production level per year. The CdTe technology is the result of work done by Colorado State University, NREL and NSF.

 

Miscellaneous industry headlines

 

SCI Engineered Materials receives $1 million thin film solar order


Thresher Industries selects the Cal Poly’s materials engineering program to set up testing protocol


Bekaert introduces one-piece rotatable AZO target at Intersolar North America 2009


Natural History Museum of London acquires an Asylum MFP-3D Stand Alone AFM



    Tubular solar - the shape of things to come?

    Tubular solar - the shape of things to come?

    Cylindrical solar tubes from Solyndra.

    Cylindrical solar tubes from Solyndra.

    Business is beginning to take shape at Solyndra, and the shape it’s taking is tubular. The Fremont, Calif.-based solar power manufacturer began selling its novel cylindrical-shaped solar tubes in July ‘08 and, according to CEO Chris Gronet, the firm already has racked up $1.2 billion in contracted orders. The differences between Solyndra’s solar tubes and conventional solar panels are many. The obvious difference is their shape. Unlike conventional solar flat panels, a single Solyndra “panel” is comprised of 40 glass cylinders placed horizontally side-by-side. Their tubular shape allows each cylinder to collect sunlight from any angle, the company says.

    By painting a roof white, the firm even enables cylinders to capture reflected sunlight from their “down” side. Differences also occur in installation. Traditional solar flat panels must be precisely angled with devices that add cost and time, a Solyndra press release explains. It also claims exact spacing must be provided between panels so they don’t obstruct each other’s performance, and they must be anchored by ballast or “rooftop penetration” to meet wind-loading requirements. In contrast, Solyndra’s solar tubes can be laid beside each other in straight lines across a roof. Angling and extra spacing isn’t necessary and, because the wind blows around and through Solyndra panels, the need for rooftop anchoring is also reduced.

    All this adds up to a Solyndra installation costing about half that of a regular flat-panel installation, Solyndra CEO Gronet says. Another major difference between the solar alternatives is in the way they are manufactured. While traditional flat panels are assembled from photovoltaic cells made from silicon, Solyndra tubes are made from a less expensive thin-film of semiconductor material. This material - comprised of copper, indium, gallium and selenium - is deposited on a glass tube, which is nested inside another glass tube. The outer tube concentrates sunlight and protects the solar film on the inside tube. Finally, unlike most traditional solar-panel makers, Solyndra’s management is not targeting the residential market. Instead, Solyndra’s solar tubes are being sold through installers exclusively to the commercial rooftop market. Gronet figures this market adds up to about 30 billion square feet of warehouse, supermarket, factory and other commercial rooftop space in the U.S. alone.