CIGS STEPS UP

Thin film photovoltaic solar materials are not as efficient as photovoltaic solar panels. That means they convert less of the sunlight hitting them into electricity. What makes thin film one of the hottest items in the power industry is that it coverts a wider spectrum of sunlight to electricity so it can be used in places where the light is less direct. Also, thin film can be made faster, at lower cost, and – in some cases – without silicon. Finally, it can be printed into a glass substrate as a solar cell or it can be printed onto building materials such as window glass or roofing tiles.

And now HelioVolt Corporation has upped the ante in thin film manufacturing by developing a way to do its Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) formula printing ten to a hundred times faster than competing companies’ methods.

The most widely used thin film formulas include HelioVolt’s CIGS, First Solar’s Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) and Uni-Solar’s amorphous polysilicon. Other types of thin films include Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), crystalline polysilicons and experimental formulas like light absorbing dyes and nanocrystalline structures.

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HelioVolt Exceeds 12% Solar Thin Fil Efficiency with Rapid, Scalable Printing Process
May 12, 2008 (HelioVolt via Business Wire)

WHO
HelioVolt Corporation (Dr. BJ Stanbery, founder/CEO)

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WHAT
The HelioVolt FASST® reactive transfer printing process has produced thin film solar cells in a record-setting 6 minutes without compromising efficiency.

WHEN
- Dr. Stanbery made the announcements about the HelioVolt production process and thin film efficiency at the 33rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference in San Diego, CA, May 12.
- HelioVolt’s printing technique is ten to one hundred times faster than the competing co-evaporation and two-stage selenization methods.

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WHERE
- HelioVolt Corporation is based in Austin, TX
- Dr. Stanbery’s claims for the HelioVolt process were independently verified by testing at Colorado State University.

WHY
- HelioVolt’s FASST® printing process produces Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) solar thin film with an efficiency of 12.2%.
- The company is now preparing to improve its products’s efficiency and manufacture the CIGS thin film for solar cells and building intergrated materials at higher volumes. It is aiming for 20 megawatts of capacity and wants to expand internationally.
- HelioVolt last year won $101 million in funding from Masdar Clean Tech Fund, Paladin Capital Group, Sequel Venture Partners, Noventi Ventures, Solúcar Energia, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Morgan Stanley Principal Investments, Sunton United Energy, Yellowstone Capital and Passport Capital.

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QUOTES
Dr. BJ Stanbery, founder/CEO, HelioVolt: “In the lab, CIGS is already achieving the highest efficiencies of any thin film solar material. The challenge of course is transferring that efficiency to a high throughput, high yield, low cost process capable of delivering gigawatts worth of quality commercial product…We view these high-performance results as an indicator of FASST’s potential to meet that need. We’re already producing CIGS devices that are comparable with the highest efficiency thin film products on the market today, and we still see plenty of room to improve from here.”