MANUFACTURINGMATERIALS


Solar Production to become Greener


A key selling point for PV and solar applications is the ‘Green’ benefits for societies and industrial infrastructures. With some of the materials that have been used in PV and solar production, the industry was in danger of creating problems as they fixed others. Luckily there has been a positive move towards a cleaner and greener approach to manufacturing. The Solarpeq team look at the growing issues.


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riple Green is the new motto in photovoltaics: for modules that generate


clean energy, that are recycled and – what’s more – ecologically produced. This is how the solar power industry can build its image and sustainably cut costs. However, this perfect triad is difficult to implement because “green factories” require high initial investment.


This time the innovation does not originate from China or the USA but from Osterweddingen in Saxony-Anhalt: the Malibu company that manufactures modules from thin-film silicon in this little town near Magdeburg, now cleans its process


chambers with fluorine rather than the hazardous greenhouse gas nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). This does not sound too spectacular but affords major ecological benefits: “It allows us to avoid any emission risks,” says Malibu Production Manager Antje Bönisch. If inadvertently released into the atmosphere NF3 is 17,200 times more dangerous for global warming than carbon dioxide. By comparison fluorine, she says, has no greenhouse gas potential. This turn towards ecological processes only becomes really attractive for the company through falling operating costs. “We are saving a six-digit sum every year,” says Bönisch and adds that it is giving Malibu a competitive


www.solar-pv-management.com Issue VI 2010


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