Undated jot down print shows a First Solar join forces with in Frankfurt, Germany.
Credit: Reuters/Handout/Courtesy of First Solar
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - First Solar Inc, the world"s largest thin-film solar row producer, has set up a Silicon Valley lab for a thin-film jot down with the intensity for higher potency at a reduce cost, sources said.
A big move toward panels formed on CIGS, or copper indium gallium diselenide, jot down would symbol a vital change for First Solar in to an area pioneered by others and would additionally lend await to critics who see singular room to urge the potency of the company"s stream cadmium telluride panels.
The association has pronounced the cad-tel panels can surpass eleven percent potency in converting object to electricity, and it aims to urge that further.
First Solar concurred on Thursday it has a small investigate and growth section in Silicon Valley but declined to criticism further.
The Arizona-based association done a name for itself with these thin-film panels that are less fit than customary panels formed on computer processor-style silicon semiconductors, but are most cheaper to furnish per watt of output.
CIGS offers the goal of poor thin-film prolongation costs with potency nearby the most appropriate of silicon solar cells, that can be as high as twenty percent.
First Solar, that has never discussed the Silicon Valley operations publicly, has had a investigate and growth section there for a integrate of years, five industry sources with believe of the operation said.
The association is seeking at low-cost processes to make CIGS panels, one of the people said, though dual alternative sources pronounced the CIGS investigate appears to be in the primary stages.
Most First Solar operations are outward California, with the corporate domicile in Tempe, Arizona, and factories in Ohio and Malaysia. The Silicon Valley unit, however, would good from the abounding engineering and semiconductor-related bent accessible in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In lab conditions, CIGS has demonstrated the potency of silicon cells. The U.S. Department of Energy"s National Renewable Energy Laboratory set a new potency jot down of 19.9 percent for CIGS, impending the jot down for bright silicon cells, but no association has come close to that in the factory.
First Solar Chief Financial Officer Jens Meyerhoff, when asked about new technologies at an industry discussion last month, pronounced the association monitors rising technologies closely but hasn"t seen vital rival threats.
First Solar has an "in-house bid that deals with comment and analysis of swap element sets and technologies," Meyerhoff added.
The association has never publicly pronounced it is you do investigate on CIGS-based solar panels.
Silicon Valley is home to most start-ups that are seeking to commercialize CIGS-based panels, together with MiaSole, Nanosolar and Solyndra.
CIGS has held the courtesy of researchers and companies as it has the intensity to compare the photovoltaic (PV) potency of bright silicon cells.
"If you can do it, it"s probably the cheapest PV resolution out there," pronounced Travis Bradford, Director of Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development.
Ascent Solar, a publicly traded CIGS-based solar company, has pronounced it has completed potency as high as 11.7 percent for the modules.
Sales of CIGS panels are little compared to First Solar"s sales of cad-tel panels, or those done by large competitors Suntech Power Holdings and SunPower Corp.
The cost of construction CIGS cells is approaching to tumble to 50 cents per watt in the entrance years, less than half the turn of stream silicon cells.
(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Richard Chang)
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