news digest ♦ Solar
SMA Solar Technology AG was recognised for its continued partnership with First Solar on a number of key strategic initiatives, including third party sales support, around the world, while maintaining quality and controlling costs.
OMCO Solar was honoured for demonstrating considerable manufacturing flexibility that accommodated First Solar’s dynamic EPC project schedules in North America.
Airgas USA, LLC was recognised for ensuring continued, uninterrupted supply of manufacturing materials to First Solar’s Perrysburg production facility, as well as personal protection equipment and safety equipment, while remaining open to creative approaches to managing inventory and reducing costs.
Air Liquide Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (ALM) was awarded for delivering an expanded nitrogen generation system in support of new manufacturing processes at First Solar’s production facility in Kulim, Malaysia, and for supporting First Solar’s requirements at competitive rates.
“Our suppliers play a critical role in fulfilling our mission to create enduring value by enabling a world powered by clean, affordable solar electricity,” said Shellie Molina, First Solar’s Vice President of Global Supply Chain. “We appreciate the exceptional efforts of these NOVA award recipients and the value they provide through the highest standards of quality, cost and performance in both the manufacturing and EPC environments.”
First Solar estimates that its business operations support approximately 33,000 supply chain jobs on a global basis. The company established the NOVA Award in 2011 to honour suppliers who significantly support its mission.
Avancis raises the bar with 16.6 percent efficiency CIS module
NREL has certified the firm’s cadmium free thin-film PV module
Avancis has achieved a new efficiency world record for encapsulated thin-film modules.
On a 30 x 30 cm² cadmium free CIS solar module, the company has achieved an international peak value of 16.6 percent, which was independently confirmed by the U.S. Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the laboratory of the U.S. for research and development for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Avancis increased its last externally certified efficiency record of 2011 and heads again the international efficiency ranking of encapsulated CIS thin-film modules. The aperture efficiency of 16.6 percent of the champion module has been certified by NREL in January 2014 and will be listed in the official record efficiency table of the journal Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applicationsreleased in the next edition (Solar Efficiency Tables, Table II: Confirmed terrestrial module efficiencies).
Together with the recently published efficiency of ZSW´s 20.8 percent efficiency on a laboratory cell, the result demonstrates the extraordinary potential of the CIS based thin-film technologies.
“The increased efficiency shows the enormous potential of our CIS production process,” comments Jörg Palm, Head of Process Development at Avancis. “A transfer of the pilot process to the production would lead to an impressive module performance of nearly 160 Wp of the approximately 1 m² sized PowerMax modules. The very good homogeneity of the CIS absorber properties based on production dimensions of 158 x 66 cm² were demonstrated by the minor deviation of 0.15 % absolute between different 30 x 30 cm² modules from the same full-size absorber.”
The 30 x 30 cm² sized champion module is taken by a mass-produced CIS absorber of the second Avancis factory in Torgau, and was further processed from the buffer processing in the research and development centre in Munich.
128
www.compoundsemiconductor.net March 2014
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164