Solar Cells Info

HelioVolt’s FASST® Manufactures High Quality CIGS Using Both Vacuum and
Non-Vacuum Deposition Techniques
Austin, Texas, July 24, 2008
Source. HelioVolt Corp press release

HelioVolt Corporation, a producer of highly-efficient thin film solar energy products, today announced that it has garnered an R&D 100 Award from Research & Development (R&D) Magazine for work performed in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Known as the “Oscars of Invention,” the R&D 100 Awards celebrate the year’s most significant commercial innovations from around the world. HelioVolt and NREL received the award for demonstrating a simpler, faster end-to-end process for printing high quality thin film photovoltaic (PV) systems. (more…)

Flagship Manufacturing Facility to Provide 160 New Green Jobs
Austin, Texas, Oct 24, 2008
Source: HelioVolt Corp. press release
http://www.heliovolt.net//index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=134&Itemid=95

Today HelioVolt Corporation will cut the ribbon on its first factory for manufacturing high-performance thin film solar energy products. The 122,400 square foot sustainable facility in Austin, Texas is expected to create approximately 160 new jobs for the U.S.’s growing renewable energy sector. City officials, state and federal representatives, and energy industry leaders will join HelioVolt executives and staff in dedicating the new solar factory. (more…)

by Tom Cheyney, 23 October 2008
Source: PVTech.org
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/
honda_soltec_starts_public_industrial_sales_of_cigs_solar_modules_in_japan/

Honda Soltec said it will start selling copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide thin-film-based solar modules for public and industrial use throughout Japan on Friday. The Honda solar subsidiary has sold photovoltaic modules for home use since October 2007, and now the company intends to expand its customer base by manufacturing and selling solar units capable of the high-capacity electrical generation required by public and industrial facilities. (more…)

Hartford, Conn, 23 October 2008
Source: Associated Press/Forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/10/23/ap5598888.html

China Sunergy Co. Ltd., a solar cell manufacturer based in Nanjing, China, announced Thursday it signed an agreement for a supply of single crystal silicon ingot for the production of solar cells.  Japan’s Hitachi (nyse: HIT – news – people ) High-Technologies Corp. and its affiliate agreed to supply 1,472 tons of silicon ingot through the end of 2011. (more…)

By Julie Steenhuysen, Chicago, Oct 5, 2008
Source: Reuters.com
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE49429H20081005

U.S. researchers have found a way to make efficient silicon-based solar cells that are flexible enough to be rolled around a pencil and transparent enough to be used to tint windows on buildings or cars.  The finding, reported on Sunday in the journal Nature Materials, offers a new way to process conventional silicon by slicing the brittle wafers into ultrathin bits and carefully transferring them onto a flexible surface. (more…)

By Henry Fountain, October 6, 2008
Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/science/07obsola.html?ref=environment

Photovoltaic cells, the basic building blocks of solar panels, are more efficient and less costly than ever. But manipulating cells (which are usually made of semiconductor materials) and incorporating them into different panel designs is not necessarily easy.  John A. Rogers of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and colleagues have come up with a novel method for creating extremely thin solar cells that can be combined in flexible, even partially transparent, arrays. Described in Nature Materials, it could be called the rubber-stamp approach. (more…)

by Gina Roos, Green SupplyLine, Dallas, Texas, 14 October 2008
Source: EETimes, com
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=211200560

Sanyo Energy (U.S.A.) Corp., a subsidiary of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., has introduced the HIT Power series of solar panels based on the company’s proprietary Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-layer (HIT) technology.  Designed to replace the previous HIT series, the new hybrid solar panels, with uniquely structured cells, feature technological improvements including higher conversion efficiency, less vulnerability to high temperatures and enhanced construction that make the panels among the most efficient in the solar market, said the company. (more…)

By The Associated Press, 16 October 2008
Source: Tulsa Wolrd
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20081016_12_Grou801558

Ground will be broken next week for a $51 million plant in Quapaw that will make elements for high-efficiency solar cells.  The Umicore plant, which is to be completed in the spring of 2010, will employ 165 people earning an average salary of $51,000.  Brussels, Belgium-based Umicore selected Quapaw over sites in Phoenix and Albuquerque, thanks to the availability of inexpensive power, water and land as well as good transportation access.
(more…)

Solyndra hopes to capture the wasted sunlight falling on roofs by making solar cells into cylinders rather than panels
By David Biello, October 7, 2008
Source: Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cylindrical-solar-cells-give-new-meaning-to-sunroof

There are approximately 30 billion square feet (2.8 billion square meters) of expansive, flat roofs in the U.S., an area large enough to collect the sunlight needed to power 16 million American homes, or replace 38 conventional coal-fired power plants. By covering these roofs with large, flat arrays of cylindrical thin-film solar cells (think massive installations of fluorescent tubes, only absorbing light rather than emitting it), Fremont, Calif.–based Solyndra, Inc., hopes to harness that energy.

“With a cylinder, we are collecting light from all angles, even collecting diffuse light,” says CEO Chris Gronet, who founded the solar cylinder company in 2005 based on an idea he had late one night while pondering less expensive ways to install photovoltaic panels. Because the arrays do not have to be angled or anchored into the roof, he adds, “we have half the installation cost and can install in one third the time.”
(more…)

A novel photovoltaic technology moves into large-scale production.
By Kevin Bullis, MIT Technology Review, October 17, 2008
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21574/

In a significant milestone in the deployment of flexible, printed photovoltaics, Konarka, a solar-cell startup based in Lowell, MA, has opened a commercial-scale factory, with the capacity to produce enough organic solar cells every year to generate one gigawatt of electricity, the equivalent of a large nuclear reactor. (more…)