issue n°139 - I-Micronews

12 | ISSUE N°139 | 7/02/13
PHOTOVOLTAICS
Phoenix Solar completes flagship project in Saudi
Arabia
Ground-mounted solar power plant with a peak power of 3.5 megawatts.
The installation is equipped by 12,684 crystalline silicon PV modules
supplied by Suntech and is owned by Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi
Aramco.
Phoenix Solar, an international
photovoltaic system integrator listed
in Prime Standard of the Frankfurt
Stock Exchange, has successfully taken its
flagship project in Saudi Arabia into
operation. The ground-mounted
photovoltaic plant with a peak power of 3.5
megawatts is located in Riyadh on the
premises of KAPSARC (King Abdullah
Petroleum Studies and Research Center),
home to the world’s largest oil research
facility. The solar power plant is part of the
US Green Building Council’s LEED
Certification (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) which KAPSARC
aims to achieve. This certification is proof
of compliance with the demanding
requirements and standards placed on
sustainable and green building.
Over the last 20 months, Phoenix Solar has
installed more than 12,000 Suntech Power
crystalline modules on an area of 55,000
square meters. The German company SMA
supplied the central inverters. The
expected energy yield amounts to around
5,800 megawatt hours and is fed directly
into KAPSARC’s medium voltage grid.
This project in the Saudi Arabian desert
presented many challenges, as there is
little research available so far on the
performance of solar power plants in desert
regions. Phoenix has developed a special
solution to accommodate the high
temperatures and sand storms: the
photovoltaic array boxes, which normally
stand in the field array, were placed in a
well insulated, air-conditioned inverter
building. This approach considerably
improves the conditions under which the
power plant can be maintained as well as
prolonging its life cycle. The engineers and
technicians of Phoenix Solar have
incorporated the demanding requirements
based on the Saudi Aramco Standards into
the planning, electrical work, air
conditioning technology and lighting. Saudi
Aramco as the Project Management
Consultant was responsible for the whole
project on behalf of KAPSARC.
www.phoenixsolar-group.com
Intevac receives first production order for ENERGi
Ion Implant system for solar industry
The compact ion implant ENERGi system meets the cost, efficiency and
productivity requirements of solar cell manufacturing and is the most costeffective
doping solution.
Intevac. announced that it has received an
order for an Ion Implant ENERGi system,
scheduled to ship in the first quarter of
2013. ENERGi incorporates enabling
technologies that align with solar industry cost
reduction roadmap and is extendible to
accommodate future advanced cell
architectures and efficiency requirements.
www.intevac.com
ENERGi implant tool (Courtesy of Intevac)
EMCORE delivers 1 Millionth solar cell to Space
Systems/Loral
EMCORE has been supplying Space Systems/Loral with high-efficiency,
multi-junction solar cells for more than 10 years.
Solar wafer start-up 1366 Technologies opens
new production-scale factory
The new production facility is based on the Direct Wafer technology and
has the annual production capacity of 25 MW.
The company’s new facility includes PV
cell processing equipment for testing
and validation of its wafer technology.
On January 30th, 2013 start-up 1366
Technologies (Bedford, Massachusetts, US)
opened a new production facility based on its
Direct Wafer technology in the US state of
Massachusetts, with the ability to reach up to
25 MW of annual production capacity.
The Direct Wafer process forms ultra-thin
multicrystalline silicon wafers directly from
molten silicon, removing several steps in
conventional production processes. The
factory also contains 1366’s research and
development operations.
The new factory includes processes to turn
the company’s wafers into solar photovoltaic
(PV) cells, allowing internal testing and
validation.
1366 notes that in customer trials, its cells
have achieved 17% efficiencies, comparable
with PV cells produced from conventional
multicrystalline wafers. The company also
states that the quality of its wafers varies less
than those produced with conventional
processes.
Advantage in reduced silicon waste
However, the greatest advantage may be in
reduction of waste. 1366 notes that
conventional polysilicon-to-wafer processes
are not only energy- and capital-intensive,
but lose a significant portion of polysilicon
through the sawing process.
The company’s wafers are typically produced
at thicknesses of roughly 200 microns,
however 1366 notes that its process allows it
to produce wafers in a range of thicknesses.
1366 process includes proprietary wet
process 1366 has also developed a
proprietary wet process for the surface
treatment of its wafers, a step which is
necessary as its wafers initially have a higher
reflectivity compared to conventional wafers.
The process creates a surface texture of
micro-scale pits, which increases light
absorption.
Plans to build additional 1 GW facility 1366
states that over the next 12-18 months its
wafer production will increase as its team
fine-tunes the process to where it can be
transferred and replicated in future facilities.
In addition to the facility in Bedford,
Massachusetts, the company plans to build a
1 GW manufacturing facility, for which the US
Department of Energy awarded the company
a USD 150 million loan guarantee in
September 2011. 1366 states that it expects
to begin its search for a location in 2013.
www.1366tech.com
ZOOM
In theory, an infinite-junction cell could
obtain a maximum power conversion
percentage of nearly 87 percent. The
challenge is to develop a semiconductor
material system that can attain a wide range
of bandgaps and be grown with high
crystalline quality.
By exploring novel semiconductor materials
and applying band structure engineering, via
strain-balanced quantum wells, the NRL
research team has produced a design for a
MJ solar cell that can achieve direct band
gaps from 0.7 to 1.8 electron volts (eV) with
materials that are all lattice-matched to an
indium phosphide (InP) substrate.
The primary innovation enabling this new
path to high efficiency is the identification of
InAlAsSb quaternary alloys as a high band
gap material layer that can be grown latticematched
to InP. Drawing from their
experience with Sb-based compounds for
detector and laser applications, NRL scientists
modeled the band structure of InAlAsSb and
EMCORE, a provider of compound
semiconductor-based components and
subsystems for the fiber optic and
solar power markets, announced that it
recently delivered its 1 millionth highefficiency,
multi-junction solar cell to Space
Systems/Loral (SS/L), which will ultimately
represent more than a megawatt of power
delivered into space. EMCORE and Space
Systems/Loral will mark the occasion with a
special event at EMCORE’s Albuquerque
facilities during the week of February 25,
and with a commemorative award
symbolizing the 1 millionth solar cell.
EMCORE has been supplying Space Systems/
Loral with high-efficiency, multi-junction solar
cells for more than 10 years and in May 2009
announced a long term supply agreement
with Space Systems/Loral to continue
manufacturing and delivering solar cells for
their spacecraft programs through 2014.
NRL designs multi-junction solar cell based on InP substrate
From page 1
metal
n-type InAlAsSb emitter
p-type InAlAsSb base
p-type InAlAsSb tunnel diode
n-type InAlAsSb tunnel diode
n-type InGaAlAs/InGaAsP emitter
p-type InGaAlAs/InGaAsP base
p-type InGaAlAs/InGaAsP tunnel diode
n-type InGaAlAs/InGaAsP tunnel diode
n-type InGaAs emitter
InGaAs QWs
p-type InGaAs base
metal
Schematic diagram of a multi-junction (MJ) solar cell
formed from materials lattice-matched to InP and achieving
the bandgaps for maximum efficiency (Courtesy of NRL)
showed that this material could potentially
achieve a direct band-gap as high as 1.8eV.
With this result, and using a model that
includes both radiative and non-radiative
recombination, the NRL scientists created a
solar cell design that is a potential route to
over 50 percent power conversion efficiency
under concentrated solar illumination.
EMCORE’s business relationship with Space
Systems/Loral has been integral to the
development of the Company’s photovoltaics
division and the growth of its space satellite
solar power business. Since its formation in
1998, EMCORE Photovoltaics has grown to be
the world’s leading manufacturer of highefficiency,
multi-junction solar cells for space
power applications. EMCORE’s industryleading
multi-junction solar cells have a
Beginning-Of-Life (BOL) conversion efficiency
nearing 30% and the option for a patented,
onboard monolithic bypass diode to provide
the highest available power to interplanetary
spacecraft and earth orbiting satellites.
EMCORE’s proven manufacturing capability,
technology leadership, and high-reliability
solar cells and panels make us the supplier of
choice for demanding spacecraft power
systems.
www.emcore.com
Recently awarded a U.S. Department of
Energy (DoE), Advanced Research Projects
Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) project, NRL
scientists, working with MicroLink and
Rochester Institute of Technology,
Rochester, N.Y., will execute a three year
materials and device development program
to realize this new solar cell technology.
Through a highly competitive, peer-reviewed
proposal process, ARPA-E seeks out
transformational, breakthrough technologies
that show fundamental technical promise
but are too early for private-sector
investment. These projects have the
potential to produce game-changing
breakthroughs in energy technology, form
the foundation for entirely new industries,
and to have large commercial impacts.
www.nrl.navy.mil