Solar ♦ news digest
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Tellurium price set to rocket and threaten CdTe solar industry
Reduced copper production coupled with the application of new alternative technologies of copper extraction are both affecting the availability of tellurium.
The tellurium market faces a whole host of challenges at the moment. Being a by-product of smelted copper it is highly dependent on the trends in this huge market.
As supply is tightening, the price for the material is skyrocketing. According to Merchant Research and Consulting, a number of market forecasts say that the price of tellurium is set to rise through the coming 2-3 years. Due to reduced copper production and novel alternatives to copper extraction, the availability of tellurium is declining.
On the positive side, there are a number of alternatives to tellurium which could help counteract supply shortages. On the other hand, end-use marketers report that none of these replacements are good enough.
The potential rise in demand for tellurium could well come from developments in thin film solar cell CdTe technology and affect its performance in the future.
Inkjet printing could transform the CIGS industry
The low-cost technology of inkjet printing, which in recent decades has revolutionised home and small office printing, may soon offer similar benefits for the future of solar energy.
Engineers at Oregon State University say they have found a new way of creating CIGS solar devices using inkjet printing.
The scientists say their technology reduces raw July 2011
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 77
material waste by 90 % and will significantly lower the cost of producing solar energy cells with some very promising compounds. High performing, rapidly produced, ultra-low cost, thin film solar electronics should be possible, the scientists said. The findings have been published in the journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells and the scientists have also applied for a patent for the technology.
Further research is needed to increase the efficiency of the cell, but the scientists say their work could lead to a whole new generation of solar energy technology.
“This is very promising and could be an important new technology to add to the solar energy field,” said Chih-hung Chang, from the OSU School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering. “Until now no one had been able to create working CIGS solar devices with inkjet technology.”
Part of the advantage of this approach, Chang said, is a dramatic reduction in wasted material. Instead of depositing chemical compounds on a substrate with a more expensive vapour phase deposition – wasting most of the material in the process – inkjet technology could be used to create precise patterning with very low waste.
“Some of the materials we want to work with for the most advanced solar cells, such as indium, are relatively expensive,” Chang said. “If that’s what you’re using you can’t really afford to waste it, and the inkjet approach almost eliminates the waste.”
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