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Southeast Asia 

For Solar and PV Manufacturing Professionals 

Covering India, Thailand, Malaysia, 

Singapore, The Philippines and Hong Kong 

Volume 2 Number 3 Autumn 2011 

CONCENTRATED SOLAR 

THERMAL 

Thermal oxidation in crystallaline solar 

cell metalization 

high-speed laser processing in thin-film 

module manufacturing 

unraveling the smart grid for india 

Ashok Chandak 

Interview Inside

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Contents 




Global Solar Technology 

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Contents 

2 Learning from Solyndra 

Pradeep Chakraborty 

Technology Focus 

10 

Volume 2, No. 3 

Autumn 2011 

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© Trafalgar Publications Ltd. 

Designed and Published 

by Trafalgar Publications, 

Bournemouth, United 

Kingdom 

10 Concentrated solar thermal—beyond the solar 

field 

Justin Zachary , PhD, Bechtel Power Corporation 

18 High-speed laser processing in thin-film module 

manufacturing 

Dr. Marc Hüske, LPKF SolarQuipment 

38 Thermal oxidation in crystalline solar cell 

metallization 

Dr. Hans Bell and Manuel Schwarzenbolz, Rehm 

Thermal Systems 

Special Features 

30 Interview: Ashok Chandak—NXP 

Semiconductors 

32 Unraveling the smart grid for India 

34 Solar thermal parabolic trough economics 

36 Case Study: The key to ‘printing’ CIGS: tight 

tolerance control 

42 Lamination—no problem for Bürkle! 

regular columns 

18 

38 

30 

4 Shifting landscape for regional PV manufacturing 

Chris O’Brien 

22 Industry’s growing pains are muddying 

2H11 visibility 

Jon Custer-Topai 

Regular Features 

6 Industry News 

44 Events Calendar 

Whether or not to add reheat to the CSP 

cycle has serious consequences: p 6. 

[Siemens press picture] 

Visit www.globalsolarseasia.com for the latest news and more. 


Global Solar Technology South East Asia – Autumn 2011 – 1

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Technical Editor 

Learning from 

Solyndra 

Recent news sure to send jitters up the 

spine of the global solar/PV industry is that 

concerning Solyndra. The company is said 

to have shut down its manufacturing capability 

and will likely file for bankruptcy. 

Reports available cite Solyndra’s case as 

an overall failure of its business. It should 

also serve as a warning to all solar/PV companies—established, 

as well as start-ups. 

Maybe Solyndra had a problem facing 

increasing costs for manufacturing PV 

modules. Or it simply could not find a way 

to balance that cost against the actual selling 

costs. 

According to IMS Research, the global 

PV module industry recently suffered from 

a huge oversupply. This, in turn, led to fierce 

price competition. Average prices dropped 

by about 20 percent in a single quarter. 

Perhaps, such a scenario could not help 

Solyndra! 

There is something called consolidation, 

which simply means that there are a 

lot of players in the market, but very few are 

going to last the course. 

Back in India, during last year’s 

Solarcon India event, Deepak Gupta, secretary, 

MNRE, government of India, had 

mentioned the need to develop indigenous 

manufacturing capacity. Dr. Farooq 

Abdullah, Hon’ble Union Minister for New 

and Renewable Energy, had added that 

“India should develop its technology right 

here! Don’t import third rate technology!” 

Wonder, how much of that advice is being 

followed! 

In India, we have a habit of talking 

about the smart grid. Dr. Kaushik Saha, 

principal member, technical staff in the 

Advanced Systems Technologies group 

of STMicroelectronics, has said that it is 

important that we learn to differentiate the 

implementation and application of smart 

grid for India vis-a-vis the global demand 

from this project, particularly keeping rural 

India in mind. 

How many of the solar/PV projects are 

actually helping rural India as of now How 

can we save power using the smart grid 

Nearly 70 percent of the Indian population 

lives in villages! However, there are 

thousands of villages that either have no 

electricity or there is inadequate electricity. 

Scenarios such as these make it very attractive, 

if not mandatory, to capitalize on technologies 

such as smart grids to leapfrog to 

next level. 

The government of India has planned 

‘Power for all by 2012’. In this context, the 

smart grid can be a very attractive technique 

by which full electrification of the 

country can be achieved. 

India is too diverse, geographically and 

climatically, for centralized electrification 

to be successful and sustainable. Smart 

grids, based on distributed local energy 

generation from renewable resources, coordinated 

and controlled by distributed 

controllers connected through power line 

communication, seem to be the best feasible 

technology. 

While doing all of this, PV planners 

should not forget the Solyndra debacle, and 

the reasons that actually led to it! 

It will be in the interest of India if the 

local solar/PV industry seriously looks at 

itself and check whether ‘third-rate technology’ 

is being used anywhere. Adequate 

checks and measures need to be taken right 

now in order to ensure that ‘good technology’ 

is currently in use. 

Should the advice be not followed, be 

prepared to see some Solyndra-like cases 

happen in India! 

—Pradeep Chakraborty 

www.globalsolarseasia.com

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Shifting landscape for regional PV manufacturing 

Shifting 

landscape for 

regional PV 

manufacturing 

Chris O’Brien 

 

Regional Manufacturing Market Share 

The global PV industry has grown at 

an extraordinary pace, with volume 

of shipments increasing by an 

average of 47% p.a. since 1997 (Navigant 

Consulting). That period of growth has also 

seen some dynamic changes in the regional 

patterns of manufacturing, as shown in 

Chart 1. 

The U.S. was the world’s leading PV 

manufacturing market through the mid- 

1990s, representing 47% of global PV 

shipments in 1997, at a point in time when 

the total world market was only 114 MW. 

Key policies that led to U.S. early leadership 

in PV manufacturing included support 

from DOE for basic and applied PV 

technology research as well as state-level 

economic development incentives, some of 

which were specifically tailored to attract 

PV manufacturing. A key shortcoming 

of the U.S. policies was the inconsistency 

of incentives for end-users. Many of the 

utility-sponsored PV rebate programs 

were pared back in the early 1990’s as 

a part of the transition to deregulated 

energy markets in many states, and the 

rebate programs that remained had limited 

funding and significant risk of funding 

cuts from year to year. The result of these 

“stop and start” funding cycles for PV was 

that PV manufacturing investments in the 

U.S. were subject to significant policy risk, 

hindering investment. 

Beginning in the mid-1990’s Japan 

began to increase its market share, largely 

as a result of a “demand-pull” PV policy 

introduced by the Japan government that 

established an ambitious long-term target 

for PV installations in the country, 5 GW 

cumulative installations by 2010. At the 

% of Global Shipments 

60% 

50% 

40% 

30% 

20% 

10% 

0% 

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 

U.S. % Total 

Japan % Total 

China & Taiwan % Total 

Chart 1. Regional manufacturing market share. 

same time, the government, through METI’s 

New Energy Foundation, introduced an 

ambitious rebate program for residential 

PV investors. This up-front rebate was set 

at a level that paid for approximately 50% 

of the then-current cost of residential PV 

systems, and significantly, the government 

signaled to Japanese industry that the 

funding for the incentive program would 

be maintained and expanded in following 

years, with a reduction in the rebate level 

each year. The results were remarkable, and 

illustrated the positive impact of policy 

stability in spurring market expansion 

and cost reduction, as shown below. 

At the same time, this market growth 

and stability coincided with a surge in 

investment in PV manufacturing capacity 

by Japanese suppliers. By 2004, 10 years 

after the PV incentive program had 

been launched, Japanese manufacturers 

EU % Total 

ROW % Total 

represented well over 50% of total PV 

shipments. Over the past five years, Japan 

has lost its manufacturing market share 

leadership for several reasons, including a 

shortage of polysilicon, and the growth of 

manufacturing bases first in Europe and 

then in Asia, serving explosively-growing 

markets in Europe. 

Building upon the momentum of the 

successful Japanese rooftop PV incentive 

program in the late 1990’s, policy-makers 

in Germany introduced a restructured 

feed-in-tariff program in 2000, with solarspecific 

tariff rates, 20-year tariff contracts 

and a structure of annual digressions 

intended to provide a “glide path” to grid 

parity. The result of this policy was an 

unprecedented growth in investment and 

market expansion, accelerated further as 

other countries in Europe, Asia and even 

North America adopted similar feed-in- 

4 – Global Solar Technology South East Asia – Autumn 2011 www.globalsolarseasia.com

METI/NEF Subsidy Program Spurs Residential Market Growth in Japan 

Shifting landscape for regional PV manufacturing 

$/kW 

$18,000 

$16,000 

$14,000 

$12,000 

$10,000 

$8,000 

$6,000 

$4,000 

$2,000 

$0 

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 

tariff programs to meet renewable and 

solar energy policy goals. The feed-intariff 

policies have been the foundation 

for the majority of the global market 

growth over the past decade. The impact of 

these policies on regional manufacturing 

investments is less clear, as shown in Chart 

2. Market share for European PV cell 

manufacturers increased from under 20% 

to over 30% in the first five years following 

the introduction of feed-in-tariff policies in 

Germany; however manufacturing market 

share for Europe remained static for the 

following several years, and beginning in 

2009 declined rapidly as a result of new 

competition from low-cost high-volume 

cell and module manufacturers based in 

China and other Asian countries. 

The past five years have seen a very 

changed landscape form for global PV 

manufacturing. Notwithstanding the 

continuing demand pull in a growing 

number of markets in Europe, the majority 

of new manufacturing capacity expansion 

has been in China and Asia. Some of the 

factors driving this shift are economic, 

CoO, $/Wp 

Average Residential PV System Cost ($/kW) 

NEF Subsidy Rate ($/kW) 

Number of PV Homes Installed (NEF) 

Chart 2. METI/NEF subsidy program spurs residential market growth in Japan. 

0.80 

0.70 

0.60 

0.50 

0.40 

0.30 

0.20 

0.10 

0.00 

Central 

Europe 

40,000 

35,000 

30,000 

25,000 

20,000 

15,000 

10,000 

5,000 

- 

PV Home 

Systems 

Installed 

(per year) 

e.g. lower cost of capital, lower tax rates 

and lower cost of materials, labor and 

equipment. Other factors are policy-related, 

as regional and national governments 

have offered generous tax and grant 

concessions to help new and expanding 

PV manufacturers. The results have been 

dramatic. For example, the regional share 

of cell manufacturing for China/Taiwan 

has grown from less than 10% in 2005 to 

over 50% in 2010; shipments grew from 

less than 100 MW in 2005 to over 9,000 

MW in 2010 (cf. Navigant Consulting). 

Over the same time period the market 

share for “Rest of World” (chiefly Asia) has 

tripled. 

What will be the key trends in the 

future, and what are the key factors for 

determining regional investment in PV 

manufacturing For crystalline PV, new 

cell manufacturing demand will likely be 

met by further scale-up of existing cell 

manufacturing facilities, a trend that will 

also be reinforced by favorable availability 

and cost of capital in China and Asia. 

Module manufacturing investments are 

China Japan USA USA, 30% 

ITC 

likely to be more regionally dispersed and 

located in proximity to leading long term 

markets, e.g. U.S. Thin film technologies 

may follow a different pattern. Recent 

announcements by First Solar and GE 

exemplify a potential counter-trend, with 

thin film manufacturing being located 

in or near to key end markets. The U.S. 

is a particularly interesting case because 

in recent years the market share for thin 

film has been much higher than the 

global average. For example 44% of total 

U.S. PV installations in 2010 used thin 

film technologies. Furthermore, thin film 

manufacturing is highly automated, so that 

the cost of labor is a relatively minor factor, 

while the cost of materials (primarily gases 

and glass) is a more critical factor. To 

illustrate this, Chart 3 shows the estimated 

cost of production for a Micromorph® 

thin film silicon module produced on an 

Oerlikon Solar ThinFab line (120 MW 

capacity). Note that the figures shown do 

not include the cost of financing, so there 

may still be significant variations between 

regions if there are significant disparities in 

the cost of financing. 

There have been a number of policy 

initiatives introduced in recent years 

designed to stem the shift of manufacturing 

to Asia, including new domestic content 

requirements (e.g. Ontario) and new 

grant initiatives to support emerging 

technologies through the “valley of death” 

of early commercial ramp-up (e.g. U.S. 

DOE). While market protection policies 

are understandable in a subsidized solar 

energy market, policymakers also need to 

bear in mind the demonstrated efficiencies 

and cost savings that have resulted through 

global competition in the PV industry 

over the past five years, and ensure that 

supported domestic manufacturing is 

competitive and providing end customers 

with the most affordable solar energy costs. 

Chris O’Brien is head of market 

development for Oerlikon Solar, and is based 

in Washington, DC. He has held senior 

management positions with leading solar 

PV companies including Sharp Solar and BP 

Solar since 1995. Chris has previous career 

experience in the energy efficiency and 

independent power industries. He holds an 

engineering degree from Dartmouth College 

and an MBA from Stanford University. 

Chart 3. Estimated cost of production for a Micromorph® thin film silicon module. 



Industry High reliability newsof conductive adhesives for thin-film interconnects 

Industry news 

Bosch planning new manufacturing 

site for solar energy in Malaysia 

The Bosch Group wants to further expand 

its photovoltaics business and is planning a 

new manufacturing site in the Batu Kawan 

region in Penang, Malaysia. With a planned 

investment of some 520 million euros, the 

construction project for the new manufacturing 

site is one of the biggest in the company’s 

history. Construction of the new site 

is set to begin before the end of this year. 

The planned facility will cover the entire 

value-added chain, from silicon crystals 

and solar cells to modules. Start of production 

is planned for the end of 2013. www. 

bosch.com 

Thermax Limited partners with 

Amonix 

Thermax Limited and Amonix, Inc. have 

entered into an agreement that will bring 

proven, concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) 

technology for clean power generation 

to India. In this exclusive partnership, 

Amonix will offer high-performance solar 

power generation systems and Thermax 

will be the engineering, procurement and 

construction (EPC) partner to provide 

turnkey solutions to customers in India. 

www.thermaxindia.com, www.amonix.com 

Schneider to supply turnkey power 

and automation solution for 3 PV 

solar power plants 

Schneider Electric India has received 

orders worth Rs. 110 crore to supply turnkey 

power and automation solution for 

three PV solar power plants in India. The 

orders comprise two 5 MWp PV solar 

power plants and one 12.3 MWp PV solar 

power plant. Completion is expected by the 

end of this year. The three plants will have 

an annual generating capacity of up to 35 

gigawatt hours. Schneider Electric India 

will be responsible for the design, engineering, 

manufacturing, installation and commissioning 

of the plants and will deliver 

the turnkey electrical and control solution, 

including all components except the modules, 

which will be supplied by the customers. 

www.schneider-electric.com 

SCHOTT Solar to supply 67,000 

solar modules to Thailand 

SCHOTT Solar has 

received an order from 

Thailand to deliver 

67,000 photovoltaic 

modules for two 

solar power plants 

that Phoenix Solar 

Singapore has been 

building just north 

of Bangkok since 

June. The two sites 

will achieve peak 

output of 9.7 and 6.2 

megawatts. From December 2011 on, they 

are expected to supply an annual yield of 

around 25,000 MWh of environmentally 

friendly solar electricity to as many as 

10,000 Thai households. us.schottsolar.com, 

www.phoenixsolar-group.com 

PROINSO seals four new supply 

projects reaching 33 MW in India 

The Spanish company PROINSO has 

closed two new agreements for photovoltaic 

solar energy projects in India, together 

reaching 33 MW and located in the city 

of Charakana (Patan District of Gujarat) 

and in Maharastra. With the projects to 

date and the one previously signed in June 

2011 - Maharastra 1 for 2 MWS, PROINSO 

reaches the contracted figure of 35 MW in 

India. The project began the supply in the 

month of July when it began to receive the 

first materials and will be completed before 

December 2011. All projects will have 

SMA technology with the OUTDOOR 

model and polycrystalline modules. 

www.proinso.net 

AEG Power Solutions wins key 

projects in the Indian solar market 

AEG Power Solutions (AEG PS) has signed 

a contract with Surana Venture to provide 

complete balance of electrical systems 

(inverters, monitoring and measurement 

equipment) for a 5 MW solar power plant 

in the Indian state of Gujarat. Since March, 

AEG PS has been awarded contracts from 

Indian solar farm developers to provide 

electrical solutions for a total of 25 MW 

PV power plants. These power plants are 

planned to be set up in different states of 

India, including in the prestigious solar 

park initiated by the state of Gujarat. One 

of the most advanced of India, Gujarat has 

launched a program of long term power 

purchase with agreements with 80 solar 

power project investors to commission 

almost 1,000 MW of generation capacity 

by the end of 2013. During this year 

already 400 to 600 MW could be installed. 

www.aegps.com 

Spire establishes solar branch office 

in India 

Spire Corporation established a wholly 

owned subsidiary that will have an office 

in Bangalore, India. Leading Spire Solar 

Technologies Private Limited is Harjinder 

“Harry” Wahra, who joined Spire in 2008 as 

the vice president of Solar Cell Lines. 

“We are looking forward to assisting 

India in its solar mission by expanding 

our facilities into Bangalore,” said Roger 

G. Little, chairman and CEO of Spire 

Corporation. “Spire’s presence in India will 

allow our business partners, clients and 

future customers in the area the ability to 

develop a personalized bond with us, as 

well as creating the ease of rapid customer 

services.” www.spirecorp.com 

New system developed to generate 

power from sunlight concentrated 

700 times 

A new solar photovoltaic power generation 

system that can produce the same amount 

of electricity in an area about half the size of 

a conventional solar power plant, has been 

developed in Japan. The system comprises 

a large number of reflecting mirrors built 

in the plant site, which automatically track 

the sun and concentrate the sunlight onto 

solar cells installed on a tower to produce 

electricity. JFE Engineering Corporation, 


Industry news 

developer of this new system, aims to commercialize 

the system by fiscal 2013. 

The system uses heliostats, reflector 

control devices that track the sun, to concentrate 

sunlight about 150 times. Lenses 

attached to solar cells further concentrate 

the sunlight about five times. Thus, 

the system generates power using light 

700 times as intense as normal sunlight. 

www.jfe-eng.co.jp 

Phoenix Solar Singapore enters 

Indian market with two 1MWp 

contracts 

Singapore-based Phoenix Solar Pte Ltd, 

the Asia-Pacific subsidiary of photovoltaic 

system integrator Phoenix Solar AG 

of Sulzemoos, near Munich, Germany, has 

signed two contracts to install a total of 2 

MWp of CIGS and CdTe PV capacity in the 

states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, India. 

Phoenix Solar Singapore and local 

company Alectrona Energy Private Ltd 

have contracts to jointly supply and install 

a 1MWp system in Tamil Nadu for Great 

Shine Holdings Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of 

Zynergy Projects and Services Pvt Ltd. 

The company has also signed a 1MWp 

contract with Chemtrols Solar Pvt Ltd for a 

project in Gujarat. 

Both projects are scheduled to be connected 

to the grid by end-December 2011. 

www.phoenixsolar.com 

Intersolar India prepares for round 

three 

This year, Intersolar India enters its third 

round. The business-to-business industry 

platform focuses on the latest trends and 

technological developments in the fields of 

photovoltaics and solar thermal technology. 

Over 6,000 trade visitors are expected 

to attend the event in Hall 1 of the Bombay 

Exhibition Centre (BEC) in Mumbai, India 

from December 14–16, 2011. Intersolar 

India is the international meeting point 

for solar companies who are looking to 

contribute to the rapid development of the 

Indian solar market. www.intersolar.in 

Satcon to supply inverters for 40 

MW of Indian PV plants 

Bangalore’s Wipro EcoEnergy will 

use Boston-based Satcon Technology 

Corporation’s Satcon PowerGate Plus 500 

kW inverters for 40 MW of solar photovoltaic 

(PV) plants that it is developing in 

India. Satcon notes that this project represents 

the largest private development of PV 

plants in India to date. Wipro is providing 

turnkey design, procurement, construction 

and commissioning, as well as monitoring, 

operations and maintenance (O&M) for 

the PV plants. www.wiproecoenergy.com 

Tata BP Solar installs first Solar 

Power Project in co-operative sector 

Tata BP Solar India Ltd, a joint venture 

of Tata Power and BP Solar, has installed 

and commissioned a megawatt scale solar 

power plant in the co-operative sector 

under the Rooftop and Other Small Solar 

Power Generation Plant scheme administered 

by IREDA under the Jawaharlal 

Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM). 

This project is owned and developed by 

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Sahakari Sakhar 

Karkhana Ltd (BASSKL), Arvindnagar, 

Osmanabad in Maharashtra. 

This project uses 4400 number of 

crystalline silicon modules of 230 Watts 

each spread out over an area of 4.5 acres. 

These modules will generate electric current 

when solar radiation falls on them. 

The solar power plant will generate 1.56 

million units of electricity per year. www. 

tatabpsolar.com 

SunPower considers third facility for 

solar panels in the Philippines 

SunPower Philippines Mfg. Limited 

(SPML), a branch of SunPower Corp. 

U.S.A., is looking at locations in the 

Philippines for its fourth Southeast Asia 

plant. The new facility would cost $2 billion 

and create 15,000 new jobs. In addition to 

the Philippines, SunPower is considering 

Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand 

as possible locations for the new plant. The 

company is expected to make its decision 

by the end of the third quarter. www.sunpowercorp.com 

SunBorne selects Titan Tracker 

heliostat design for 1MW pilot solar 

power tower system in India 

SunBorne Energy is developing a 1MW 

solar power tower system. This R&D project, 

which tries to address the current 

technology limitations present in Indian 

industry, is jointly funded by Ministry 

of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), 

Government of India, and SunBorne 

Energy. It involves the cooperation from 

international renowned solar experts such 

as Dr. Yogi Goswami, Dr. Manuel Romero 

and Dr. Aldo Stienfeld. The collaborating 

institutions include University of South 

Florida, USA; IMDEA Energy, Spain; and 

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. 

The project will include a field of heliostats 

designed by TITAN TRACKER. SunBorne 

team is adopting Titan Tracker’s heliostat 

design through unique field layout and 

indigenized mirror facet manufacturing 

technology. www.sunborneenergy.com 

Sopogy signs MOU for solar project 

in Thailand 

Sopogy, Inc., developer of micro concentrated 

solar power (MicroCSP) technologies, 

and MAI Development Co. Ltd., an 

established Thai conglomerate focusing 

on manufacturing, construction, real 

estate, energy and government services, 

signed a memorandum of understanding 

(MOU) for development of a six-megawatt 

solar power plant in Bau Yai, Nakorn 

Ratchasima Province to provide electricity 

to the Provincial Electricity Authority 

of Thailand (PEA) in 2012. In addition, 

Sopogy has granted MAI Development 

exclusive distribution rights for MicroCSP 

systems in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and 

Vietnam. www.sopogy.com 

PLG Power plans 100 MW of 

solar power generation plant at 

Rajasthan, India 

Mumbai-based PLG Power is in plans 

to come up with 100 MW of solar power 

generation plant. One of the biggest solar 

power projects under PLG Plast Ltd., is 

expected to start early this year 2011. The 

project will be put at Pokhran under the 

recent policy of Government of Rajasthan. 

The project is in process to be approved by 

Indian Energy Exchange (IEC) and Rural 

Electrification Corporation to proceed further. 

The total estimated cost of the whole 

project is Rs. 13.50bn, and it is expected to 

start very shortly. www.solarpaces.org 

SunEdison to invest $100m in 

Thailand 

SunEdison plans to invest more than US 

$100 million next year in solar power plants 

in Thailand through a local partnership. 

The company is constructing two projects 

in the northeastern Si Sa Ket province with 

a combined capacity of 16.8 megawatts in a 

joint venture with Renewable Power Asia. 

www.sunedison.com 


THINFAB 

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Concentrated solar thermal—beyond the solar field 

Concentrated solar 

thermal— 

beyond the solar field 

Justin Zachary , PhD, Bechtel Power Corporation, Frederick, Maryland, USA 

In the design and development of 

concentrated solar thermal plants 

(CSP), a major effort is devoted to 

the improvement of the solar energy 

conversion to steam. Use of sophisticated 

means for tracking and controls, 

better optics and tube coatings 

are just few of the elements employed 

by CSP technologies designers to 

achieve their goals. However, the optimization 

of heat input to the system is 

only half of the effort. The remaining 

part, processing the heat into electric 

power using the well-known conventional 

Rankine cycle, is the subject of 

this paper. A special emphasis is given 

to the main components of a steam 

cycle: turbine and heat sink. 

The nature of the solar heat source 

and its cyclic behavior make the 

design of the turbo-machinery 

power generation equipment to be quite 

different than the steam turbines used in 

conventional power plants. The high capital 

cost of renewable facilities and the limited 

hours of operations are powerful drivers to 

increase the turbo-machinery efficiency. 

Proven technology will be a key advantage 

in the current project financing situation 

For high temperature applications, 

such as the power tower or in the mediumtemperature 

solar troughs collector field, 

the paper addresses the unique requirements 

for performance, integration and 

fast startup of the turbines, including the 

impact of various thermal storage options. 

Since most of the concentrated thermal 

solar applications are in arid regions, the 

paper discusses the heat sink selection 

(ACC, hybrid, Heller tower etc.) and how it 

impacts the plant design and performance. 

The paper reviews the state-of-the-art 

on the hardware designs for each application, 

from an EPC (engineering, procurement 

and construction) contractor’s perspective. 

Existing solar thermal 

technology concepts and 

impact on steam production 

CSP systems require several components 

to produce electricity: (1) concentrator, 

(2) receiver, (3) storage or transportation 

system, and (4) power conversion device. 

Several types of technologies are available: 

• Trough 

• Linear Fresnel 

• Solar tower 

CSP technology type determines the 

different options for interface with a conventional 

fossil-fired plant. Table 1 summarizes 

the types of technology and their 

thermal output. 

Cycle configuration 

Plant size 

Defining the plant size is not only related to 

the CSP technology but also to availability 

of appropriate steam turbine and heat sink. 

Sometimes the size is dictated by the permitting 

and local legislation. For example, 

in Spain the maximum size is set at 50 MW. 

In the United Sates such legal limitations 

do not exist; however the type of technology 

has also an impact on the size of the 

plant. There are plans for more than 200 

MW plants for either trough or tower configurations. 

It is expected that the economy 

of scale for cost and performance will yield 

the most suitable plant size based on available 

land for the solar field, standardization 

to reduce the capital cost and increased 

availability. Only a detailed analysis for 

each specific location could provide a definite 

answer. 

Keywords: Concentrated Solar 

Thermal Plants, CSP, Energy 

Conversion, Rankine Cycle, Heller 

Type of CSP 

Maximum steam temperature 

expected (˚C) 

Potential cycle efficiency 

ranges (see note) (%) 

Flat panels 110 7-10 

Fresnel collector 310 20-25 

Parabolic trough 395 28-32 

Solar tower 550 35-42 

Table 1. Summary of concentrated solar technologies. 



Figure 1. Cycle configuration. 

Figure 2. Number of FWT and cycle efficiency. 

Number of feed water heaters (FWT) 

Increasing the number of FWT improves 

plant efficiency but increases the cost. 

Figure 1 presents a typical configuration 

of a plant including an auxiliary boiler. 

Figure 2 indicates the impact of reducing 

the number of feed water heaters has 

on the steam cycle efficiency. If instead of 

seven heaters, the cycle will have only four, 

the efficiency is reduced by 0.8 percent. 

Depending on the solar multiplier and the 

economics of the plant, shutting down or 

throttling heaters could have a positive 

impact on the plant output. It is imperative 

to design the steam turbine in such a way 

that it could receive the additional steam 

available when the feed water heaters are 

out of service. 

Reheat options 

The decision to use a reheat cycle or nonreheat 

cycle is a function of LP turbine 

exhaust moisture levels and the desired 

throttle conditions that provide the optimum 

plant efficiency to capital investment 

ratio. The renewable technology that is 

used will provide restrictions on the throttle 

and reheat temperatures. For example, 

a power tower plant using molten salt can 

have main steam temperatures of around 

1,000˚F while a parabolic trough plant 

using heat transfer oil will be limited to 

around 700˚F. With throttle temperatures 

relatively fixed, the function is reduced to 

two options. First, a plant designed with 

a higher throttle pressure that provides 

a higher efficiency but requires a reheat 

system to lower exhaust moisture levels. 

Second, a plant designed with lower throttle 

pressures that requires less initial capital 

investment, but suffers from lower efficiency. 

We will look at two options using 

the two throttle temperatures stated above. 

While such discussion is pertinent also for 

fossil fuel fired plants, the increased efficiency 

means only lower capital cost for 

solar applications. 

Condensing steam turbines commonly 

operate with saturated steam exhaust 

conditions. However, if there is too much 

moisture the turbine blades will suffer 

from erosion causing decreased efficiency 

and eventually leading to an earlier than 

normal overhaul. It is common to see 

reheat turbines designed to safely operate 

with 8% exhaust moisture content, while 

non-reheat turbines are allowed to go to 

11% moisture. This analysis uses these 

values as design constraints. 

For the range of steam turbines of 

interest to designers of renewable resource 

power plants, isentropic efficiencies can 

vary from 80% to 90%. Temperature versus 

entropy diagrams can diagrammatically 

illustrate the performance impacts via 

available heat energy for the use of reheat 

versus non-reheat cycles. It is at this end 

that we will arbitrarily choose 85% isentropic 

efficiency to form a basis for our 

comparisons. Furthermore, the LP exhaust 

pressure will be kept constant to aid in 

comparison. 

Figure 3 shows a typical reheat cycle 

versus a non-reheat cycle designed at the 

same main steam temperature and pressure 

combination. The reheat option has 

a moisture content of 8% while the nonreheat 

section has a moisture content of 

14.6%. The higher moisture content in the 

LP section should be avoided. 

Figure 4 shows a comparison between 

a reheat cycle and a non-reheat cycle 

designed with a throttle temperature of 

1000˚F and with a lower throttle pressure 

in the non-reheat case to maintain an 

acceptable moisture level. 

Reduction in the turbine throttle pressure 

has protected the LP turbine blades 

T ( °F ) 

10 80 

9 80 

8 80 

7 80 

6 80 

5 80 

4 80 

3 80 

2 80 

1 80 

80 

Reheat v Non-Reheat Constant Main Steam Conditions 

non-reheat 

reheat 

vapor dome 

0 0.5 1 1. 5 2 

S (Btu/lb°R) 

Figure 3. Reheat vs non-reheat constant 

main steam conditions. 




T ( ° F) 

10 80 

9 80 

8 80 

7 80 

6 80 

5 80 

4 80 

3 80 

2 80 

1 80 

Reheatv Non-Reheat Constant LP Exhaust Conditions 

80 

0 0.5 1 1 .5 2 

S ( B t u/ l b° R ) 

Figure 4. Reheat vs non reheat for constant 

exhaust conditions. 

r eh eat 

n on- r eh eat 

v apo r do me 

from erosion due to high moisture levels. 

However, the amount of recoverable 

energy has been reduced as well. This is 

represented by the area that the blue nonreheat 

line encompasses compared to the 

area that the red reheat line encompasses. 

For the cases used in this study, the amount 

of heat available for conversion to power is 

18% lower in the non-reheat case. A summary 

of the performance is located in the 

appendix. The magnitude of the reduction 

in recoverable energy will vary with 

the temperature and pressure constraints 

imposed by the renewable resource. Figure 

5 shows a comparison between a reheat 

cycle and a non-reheat cycle designed with 

a throttle temperature of 700˚F and with 

a lower throttle pressure to maintain an 

acceptable moisture level. 

The ratio of recoverable energy has 

shifted in favor of using the non-reheat 

cycle by using a lower throttle temperature 

by a magnitude of 9%. Therefore, the performance 

advantage that the reheat cycle 

had in the 1000˚F case has been reduced 

when using a throttle temperature of 700˚F. 

A summary of the performance is located 

in Table 2. This trend indicates that there 

is a point where the performance gains of 

using a reheat cycle will be outweighed by 

T ( ° F) 

10 80 

9 80 

8 80 

7 80 

6 80 

5 80 

4 80 

3 80 

2 80 

1 80 

Reheat v Non-Reheat Constant LP Exhaust Conditions 

80 

0 0. 5 1 1 .5 2 

S (Btu /lb°R) 

Figure 5. Reheat vs non reheat at constant 

exhaust conditions with moisture reduction. 

re hea t 

non -r e hea t 

vap ord om e 

the additional capital investment required. 

One further option is to borrow an 

idea from nuclear, where moisture removal 

is added near the final stage of the LP turbine. 

Figure 5 shows a comparison of the 

1000˚F throttle temperature where the 

reheat option is compared with a nonreheat 

cycle that has a moisture removal 

stage. This shows a single stage moisture 

removal section with a moisture removal 

effectiveness of 40%. The comparison is 

qualitative in nature due to the theoretical 

nature of using this technology derived 

for much larger applications and viewing 

it solely from a thermodynamic point of 

view. A quantitative analysis would require 

further investigation with steam turbine 

manufacturers. 

In Figure 5, it can be seen that in the 

case where throttle temperature is 1000˚F 

throttle pressure can be maintained at the 

reheat level while moisture is kept to a safe 

level. There is a 12% reduction in available 

heat energy in the moisture removal case. 

A summary of the performance is located 

in the Table 2. Therefore, the performance 

losses are less than the case where throttle 

pressure was lowered. 

The choice of whether or not to add 

reheat to the cycle has serious consequences 

on performance and the initial 

capital investment required for construction 

of the plant. LP turbine exhaust conditions 

must be maintained at sufficiently 

low moisture levels to ensure long reliable 

operation. The cases above have shown the 

performance reduction on a basis of available 

energy, but it is important to note that 

the performance increase that the reheat 

option has comes at the price of increased 

heat transfer surface area. It is to this end 

that plant efficiency must be evaluated 

as well as the plant output. The ratio of 

available heat to heat input, annotated as 

efficiency is listed in the appendix for the 

various options to evaluate the plant performance 

on an efficiency basis as well as 

an overall available heat basis. 

Either the additional initial capital 

must be invested to keep turbine throttle 

pressure up and increase performance 

with a reheat cycle, or throttle pressure 

can be allowed to fall with a lower initial 

capital investment and lower performance. 

The use of moisture removal stages offers 

a compromise between reheat and nonreheat 

throttle pressures, but requires further 

quantitative analysis from turbine 

manufacturers. In summation it is imperative 

in the renewable technologies market 

to do a comprehensive engineering analysis 

of the various options in the available 

turbo-machinery to ensure the capital 

investment is optimized for the renewable 

resource being used. 

Heat Sink consideration 

In the following section the various options 

for heat sink will be described. Since the 

selection of the heat sink is dictated not 

only by the cycle design but also by the 

availability of water, a detailed discussion 

is needed. Pictures of the three systems are 

given at the end of the paper 

Air cooled condenser (ACC) 

In an ACC, (see Figure 6) heat is transferred 

from the steam to the air using fin 

tube bundles. The ACC tube bundles have 

1000˚F Reheat 

1000˚F 

Non-reheat 

Constant 

Pressure 

1000˚F 

Non-reheat 

Reduced 

Pressure 

1000˚F 

Non-reheat 

Moisture 

Removal 

700˚F Reheat 

700˚ 

Non-reheat 

Reduced 

Pressure 

Heat input (BTU/lb) 1706.2 1544.9 1542.3 1581.9 1471.4 1392.8 

Heat Rejected (BTU/lb) 942.0 874.1 911.3 911.2 942.0 911.3 

Heat Available (BTU/lb) 764.2 670.8 631.1 670.7 529.4 481.4 

Efficiency (%) 44.8 43.4 40.9 42.4 36.0 34.6 

LP Exhaust Moisture (%) 8.0 14.6 11.0 11.0 8.0 11.0 

Table 2. Summary of the thermal analysis results. 



Figure 6. Air-cooled condenser. 

Figure 7. Parallel cooling system. 

Figure 8. The Heller system. 

a relatively large tube side cross section 

and are usually arranged in an A-frame 

configuration, resulting in a high heatexchange-surface-area-to-plot-area 

ratio. 

The tubes are kept cool by the heat being 

conducted across the tube thickness to the 

finned outer surface. Air is continuously 

circulated over the (dry) outside surface of 

the tubes. Heat transfer from this outside 

surface of the tubes to the air takes place 

by forced convection heat transfer (heating 

of the air). No evaporation of water is 

involved. Thus, for air cooled condensers, 

the condenser performance with regard to 

turbine exhaust pressure is directly related 

to the ambient (dry bulb) air temperature, 

as well as to the condenser design and operating 

conditions. This results in a higher 

turbine back pressure for given ambient 

atmospheric conditions, with a resultant 

decrease in turbine generator output when 

compared to wet cooling technologies. 

An ACC eliminates the entire circulating 

water system, circulating water pumps and 

surface condenser. 

Parallel condensing system (PAC) 

Exhaust steam from the steam turbine is 

separated into two streams. One stream 

flows into a water-cooled surface condenser 

while the other is directed to an aircooled 

condenser. Condensate from the 

surface condenser and the air-cooled condenser 

can be collected in a common hotwell. 

Water consumption is controlled by 

the distribution of the heat load between 

the two condensers. 

The PAC System (see Figure 7) should 

not be confused with a “hybrid” cooling 

tower, which is used primarily to reduce 

visible plume from a wet cooling tower. A 

“hybrid” cooling tower has practical limits 

to the amount of heat that can be rejected 

in the dry section, since the latter is sized 

for plume abatement only. With the PAC 

System there is complete flexibility in the 

amount of heat rejected in the dry section. 

The dry section of the PAC System 

employs direct condensation in contrast to 

most “hybrid” systems, which are indirect 

condensing systems; i.e. water is cooled 

through both the wet and dry sections and 

is then pumped through a common condenser. 

As a result, the dry section of the 

PAC System can efficiently reject a substantial 

amount of heat even on hot days, 

thereby reducing peak water usage. During 

cooler periods, the amount of heat rejected 

in the dry section can be increased up to 

100% if so designed, thus further reducing 

the plant’s water consumption. An 

additional benefit of the PAC System is the 


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Figure 9. Power loss versus steam turbine back pressure. 

MW 

200 

180 

160 

140 

120 

100 

80 

60 

40 

20 

reduction of plume. Plume can be reduced 

or eliminated entirely when danger of icing 

exists, simply by shutting off the wet section. 

Heller 

The Heller system (see Figure 8) is an indirect 

dry cooling technology that requires a 

separate condenser and circulating water 

pump. The heat is initially exchanged in a 

condenser to a closed water circuit where 

the heat is rejected to ambient air utilizing 

a dry tower with water-to-air heat exchangers, 

typically in a natural draft configuration, 

although mechanical draft is also 

available. The tower may be equipped with 

a peak cooling system that sprays water on 

part of the heat exchanger bundles during 

hot ambient conditions for peak shaving 

purposes. A direct contact (DC) jet condenser 

is typically used, since it is characterized 

by low terminal temperature difference 

(TTD) values, but surface condensers 

Typical Start up curve 

0 

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 

time 

Figure 10. Turbine start-up curves. 

heat input 

power output 

have been utilized as well. Because Heller 

systems are indirect, there is no need for 

a large diameter steam duct between the 

steam turbine and condenser. 

There is no general solution for the 

determination of the heat sink. As mentioned 

before, many considerations should 

be brought into account before a final decision 

is made. Capital cost, scarcity of water 

and plant location are some of the many 

determining factors. Experienced plant 

design could assist in the selection process. 

Steam turbine 

Requirements 

The steam turbine requirements are quite 

different than the conventional steam turbines 

for fossil applications. Here are some 

important features that equipment suppliers 

must provide: 

• Modular design 

• Capability to accommodate variable 

HP flows and high LP flows 

• Fast and easy assembly 

• Robust design for daily start up 

(low mass rotors and casings 

reduced seal leakages etc) 

• Fast responding controls 

• Capability to operate at high back 

pressure due to extensive use of 

ACC for solar applications 

• Use of high quality materials for 

cycling operation 

It should be emphasized in particular 

the fact that steam turbine start up and 

warming must be done as fast as possible. 

Designed should consider use of conventional 

natural gas firing system to insure 

that the warm up of the steam lines and 

turbine casing is done prior to sunrise. 

In terms of thermal performance the 

turbo-machinery should meet the following 

requirements: 

• High efficiency to reduce solar 

field 

• Low minimum load capability 

• Convenient steam extractions 

locations 

• Flexibility to cope with thermal 

transients 

• Proven technology 

The main goal of a solar power plant 

is to produce as many MWh per year as 

possible. At the beginning and end of the 

day, solar radiation is substantially lower. 

Therefore to maximize power production, 

the turbine should be capable of operating 

at extremely low loads. While a conventional 

steam turbine minimum load 

is about 12-15% of the base load, turbo 

machinery designers for these special 

applications should find innovative solutions 

to continuously operate at 3-5% of 

the base load. This is not a trivial task due 

to the effects of low flow on a fixed exhaust 

geometry and high ventilation losses. 

The turbo-machinery for solar applications 

should meet the following requirements: 

• Achieve the environmental emissions 

requirements 

• Offer design simplicity 

• Achieve high availability and reliability 

• Provide low O&M cost 

Turbine back pressure 

An important consideration for the selection 

of steam turbine should be given for 

the exhaust back pressure and last stage 

blade (LSB) design. It can be seen from 

Figure 9, that not necessarily a larger 

exhaust blade will provide an optimum 

solution for the system. A shorter blade (26 

inch) yields a lower power loss that a larger 


AZISIN2011_Global Solar Technology 114x248:Layout Concentrated solar 1 04.08.11 thermal—beyond 10:08 Seite the 1solar 

field 

blade (33.5 inches) as the exhaust pressure 

is getting higher. 

Start up 

An additional important characteristic 

that selecting the most appropriate turbine 

is the start up time. In absence of natural 

gas or any other heat source to facilitate 

the start up procedure by warming up the 

lines, valves and turbine casing, the ability 

of the turbine to accept steam at lower 

temperature becomes a significant consideration 

Figure 10 depicts such start. It can 

be seen that despite the fact that the heat 

input from the solar filed is much faster to 

reach substantial heat generation, the turbine 

start up requires almost 40 minutes to 

produce any power. Finally it takes close to 

80 minutes to reach full power. This behavior 

has a direct impact on the number of 

kWh produced annually. Efforts should be 

dedicated to improve such behavior either 

by use of conventional heat sources or use 

of thermal storage. 

Summary and Conclusions 

While a significant effort has been dedicated 

to solar field improvements, a comprehensive 

understanding of the interaction 

between the solar field and the heat 

energy conversion system is required 

in order to develop a successful project. 

Selection of the two major components, 

the turbo-machinery and the heat sink, 

must be coordinated and integrated to 

perform under the full range of operating 

conditions. 

The unique requirements for solar 

power plants have created specific types of 

turbo-machinery. The continuous demand 

for renewable will lead to development of 

more efficient and reliable equipment. 

The optimum equipment selection 

requires detailed analysis of: site-specific 

climate conditions, commercial drivers 

and equipment capability to respond to the 

intermittent heat source behavior. Selection 

of experienced power plant design and 

construction firms could certainly facilitate 

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High-speed laser processing in thin-film module manufacturing 

High-speed laser 

processing in thin-film 

module manufacturing 

Dr. Marc Hüske, LPKF SolarQuipment 

The key in thin-film module production 

is reduced costs per Watt peak 

(Wp). 

This can be achieved by cost-effective 

production steps, shorter cycle times 

and enhanced module efficiency. 

Module efficiency depends on the 

weakest cell and active module area. 

That is the reason why high precision 

scribing is gaining in importance. 

Reducing cycle time is feasible by process 

parallelization and increasing 

process speed. This paper presents a 

summary of current laser processes in 

thin-film module production. 

The production of thin film solar 

panels involves sequential processes 

in which lasers now play a 

crucial role. Thin film panels currently 

established on the market are based on 

semi-conductor materials cadmium telluride 

(CdTe), copper-indium gallium diselenide 

(CIGS), amorphous silicon (aSi) or 

micromorphous silicon (aSi/µSi). Recently, 

the growing market share of thin film technologies 

has been driven forward largely by 

supply bottlenecks for polycrystalline silicon 

which first appeared in 2005. This has 

helped thin film technologies to expand 

quickly—they are now an established alternative 

to wafer-based modules. The EPIA 

forecasts that by 2013 thin film technologies 

will have advanced to a market share of 

25 percent. This is equivalent to an installed 

capacity of 9 GW. 

Thin film solar panels offer a number 

of advantages compared with crystalline, 

wafer-based technology—this is true 

both in production as well as in the actual 

deployment of panels to generate electricity. 

This development has been boosted by 

the transfer of experience gained in reducing 

costs in the mass production of large 

TFT screens into the production of thin 

film solar panels. The reduced film thickness, 

in the micrometer range, generates 

significant material savings. In daily use, 

thin film modules provide persuasive arguments 

in direct comparison with crystalline 

modules despite their lower efficiency: 

they achieve this by generating higher electrical 

output due to their excellent performance 

under poor light conditions and the 

lower temperature coefficients influencing 

efficiency. The goal of manufacturing is to 

pare production costs to a figure well below 

1 US$/Wp while continuing to increase 

panel efficiency and ultimately reach gridparity. 

Grid parity is given when the power 

Keywords: Thin Film, Module 

Manufacturing, Laser Scribing, Edge 

Deletion 

Figure 1. Importance of precision laser machining in the process chain. 



generated from a photovoltaic plant can 

be offered to consumers at the same price 

as electricity from other sources. Two 

key factors are boosting the use of laser 

technology. The first is the objective of 

achieving maximum scribing precision in 

order to maximise the effective area of the 

panel, the second being to avoid mechanical 

stresses on the glass substrate so as to 

deliver functionality under diverse and 

extreme weather and environmental conditions 

over a deployment period of more 

than 20 years. 

Lasers have already established themselves 

in the scribing of solar panels in production 

stages P1 through P3. Recent process 

advances, such as laser edge deletion, 

are rapidly gaining in importance. 

Production process of a thin 

film panel and opportunities 

for laser deployment 

Figure 1 presents a typical process chain. 

The details highlight the importance of 

laser machining for module quality. 

• Laser marking describes the process 

of marking the substrate with 

either a bar or a data matrix code, 

achieved by ablating the TCO or 

molybdenum coating or the glass 

surface. 

• Laser scribing P1, this refers to 

the scribing of the molybdenum 

or TCO coating. The front contact 

of the module is subdivided into 

thin stripes to electrically insulate 

them from one another. In CIGS 

processing, the process is reversed, 

starting with rear contact coating. 

• Laser scribing P2: selective ablation 

of the absorber without damaging 

the TCO or molybdenum coating; 

after coating the rear or front contact, 

after the next coating step this 

creates a series connection between 

neighbouring cells. 

• Laser scribing P3: selective ablation 

of the semi-conductor coating and 

rear contact without damaging the 

TCO or molybdenum coating; the 

last step to opening the short circuit 

path between neighbouring 

cells. 

• Laser scribing P4: generation of 

an insulation channel around the 

active cell zone. This process step 

may also be undertaken on a separate 

machine in order to avoid 

unnecessary slowing of the scribing 

cycle time. 

• Laser edge deletion: the removal of 

the coating along the outer edge of 

Figure 2. Monolithic series connections in the superstrate structure. 

the active cell zone ready for downstream 

encapsulation processes. 

The laser scribing and edge deletion 

processes are currently based on a technique 

involving laser-induced vaporisation 

and sublimation of the thin film materials. 

Sublimation is achieved using laser pulses 

with a pulse length in the lower nano-second 

range < 100 ns. 

Selecting the laser wavelengths or 

laser beam source best suited to the ablation 

process presumes that the absorption 

characteristics and the damage thresholds 

of the materials in question are known. It 

is particularly crucial to avoid damage to 

the glass carrier material. In terms of laser 

scribing, production currently makes use 

of the wavelengths 532 nm and 1064 nm, 

which have proven to be best adapted to 

the glass absorption characteristics and the 

coating systems. 

Laser scribing 

In thin film technology, each coating, i.e. 

front contact, absorber, rear contact, is 

subdivided into individual cells. Between 

the coating phases, the laser is employed 

as a scribing tool. The sequential coating 

and scribing eventually creates monolithic 

series connections between all cells on the 

module (Figure 2). The use of laser processing 

satisfies a broad range of requirements. 

When processing front or rear contacts 

(CIGS), the ideal is for the track edges 

without any edge over-height. In particular 

when processing very thin semi-conductor 

layers, high edge over-height can cause 

a short circuit between front and rear 

contacts. Damaging the substrate is to be 

avoided for reasons already described (see 

section 1). In the case of P2 and P3 stages, 

the stack comprising the semi-conductor 

and the rear contact must be removed 

without leaving any residues but also 

Figure 3. LPKF’s Allegro® laser scribing 

system for processing aSi/µSi GEN 5-substrates. 

without damaging the underlying front/ 

rear contact. Damage would raise series 

resistance between neighbouring cells; this 

would in turn result in loss of voltage and 

an overall reduction in total panel performance. 

In the case of the superstrate structure 

of CdTe and aSi technologies, it is 

vital that the TCO front contact is transparent 

in the green laser wavelength. The 

laser pulse passes through the glass, and 

the TCO and is absorbed in the semiconductor. 

The plasma created results in 

the above lying coating stack being explosively 

lifted off the surface. If the pulse 

energy and the focus position are correctly 

adjusted, damage to the TCO coating can 

be avoided. In CIGS substrate structures, 

the molybdenum is opaque for all standard 

laser wavelengths, and it is therefore 

necessary to process stages P2 and P3 from 

the coating side. The normal high thermal 

penetration depth of nanosecond pulses is 

able to avoid—in particular in P3 structuring—the 

selective ablation of the coating 

stack without damaging the Mo-layer. 

In addition, the semi-conductor layer is 

converted into a conducting phase along 

track edge, preventing electrical insula- 




tion. Only ultra-short femto or pico-second 

pulses are capable, assuming suitable 

levels of precision and avoiding relevant 

thermal interactions, of selectively ablating 

the absorber and the front contact coating. 

These processes continue to be the subject 

of research and development. The first alllaser 

scribed CIGS thin film modules have 

been successfully manufactured on a laboratory 

scale 1 . 

Edge deletion 

Edge deletion is the process which takes 

place between scribing and encapsulation. 

The objective here is to remove any coating 

residues outside of the active modular 

zone. This is necessary in order to achieve 

optimal encapsulation of the module to 

protect and prevent penetration of dampness 

and avoid voltage jumps between the 

cells and their peripherals. It is therefore 

necessary that the glass surface is of high 

ohmic resistance and free of microcracks 

in order to ensure long-term stability and 

long module life times. 

The relatively large size of the layer 

to be removed, for example 500 cm 2 (PV- 

GEN 5 module with 1 cm edge) has to be 

machined within the normal line cycle 

time of, e.g., below 60 seconds including 

substrate transportation. This is achieved 

by way of an extremely rapid scannerbased 

movement of the square laser spot, 

of size approx. 1 mm x 1 mm, in combination 

with the continuous advance of the 

scan head or the substrate. The average 

laser output necessary in this case is of the 

order of several hundred Watts. The effect 

of sublimation cannot of itself explain the 

actual removal rates achieved. The decisive 

factor here again is the large active area of 

the laser spot, which uses plasma pressure 

to lift off the coating stack. 

System technology for 

scribing and edge deletion 

Thin film panel factories are continuous 

24/7 operations demanding technical availabilities 

(as per VDI 3423) of up to 97 %. 

Low operating costs, low maintenance and 

service friendliness are additional vital factors 

to achieve cost-effective production in 

the P1 through P4 laser scribing processing 

steps and subsequent edge deletion. The 

demands on laser scribing machines have 

grown significantly over the last years and 

mainly target at a throughput increase and 

improvement of the module efficiency by 

better area utilization of existing module 

sizes. The latter is determined by the socalled 

dead zone, the distance between the 

outer edges of the P1 and P3 tracks. The 

Figure 4. TCO (P1), sharp track edges without 

any edge over-height. 

Figure 6. aSi/µSi P3: no TCO damage, no flaking. 

aim is to achieve a dead zone between 200 

µm and 250 µm, which is only possible by 

realizing a defined laser spot diameter and 

an extremely precise positioning. 

High precision and high speed laser 

scribing 

Today’s laser scribing equipment is capable 

of handling substrates of size up to 2,200 

x 2,600 mm. The systems are designed for 

process phases P1 through P4. The most 

effective and reliable way to scribe the cell 

lines is by moving those components that 

represent the best dynamics. Instead of 

moving a large and heavy, as well as brittle, 

glass substrate, a compact laser processing 

head with several parallel processing 

beams is moved. Today’s state of the art 

systems achieve accelerations of up to 2 G 

and maximum speeds of 2 m/s. The glass 

substrate is held still during processing and 

is only moved when required for the next 

Figure 5. CIS molybdenum (P1), ultra-short 

pulse machining: no high edges or cracking. 

lines. This effectively minimises the risk 

of breakage and avoids substrate vibrations 

affecting results. The substrate is only 

moved perpendicular to the cell lines over 

the length of the glass side when creating 

insulation lines. Dynamic glass transport 

drives deliver similar high speeds to those 

of the processing head. 

This level of machining speed and precision 

is only possible using air-bearings 

instead of linear guides. These components 

are built to offer a high track precision 

of +/- 3 µm/m. Guidance accuracy 

also depends on the granite surface giving 

long-term stability to the system overall. 

The main advantage of air-bearings is the 

avoidance of wear; this guarantees low 

maintenance operations over many years. 

Today’s systems already offer the kind of 

structure precision in practice that keep 

inactive zones per track in the range of < 

220 µm. 



In the case of extremely curved/wavy 

substrates, the processing field of focus is 

not always sufficient to achieve homogenous 

machining results over the entire 

surface of the glass. In such cases, the 

processing head can be equipped with a 

dynamic focusing system in which the 

glass surface is itself scanned during the 

processing phase. The focus can be actively 

optimised for all processing beams at the 

same time in the processing head according 

to the space/distance changes identified. 

A further challenge in practise is to 

maintain high machining accuracies even 

on substrates with different absolute temperatures 

and/or non-homogenous temperature 

distribution. Different substrate 

temperatures make themselves apparent 

by altering the size of glass panes (window 

pane 9 x 10 -6 /K). This can be automatically 

compensated by linear adjustment of the 

structured layout size. Non-homogenous 

temperature distribution can results in 

deviations of structured lines from the 

ideal line or a varying cell widths over the 

panel. Achieving the ideal narrow nonactive 

zone between P3/P2 lines and the 

P1 line is not possible if the P2/P3 lines 

follow a “skew” P1 line during machining. 

A one processing head design offers a lowcost, 

but very effective solution in which an 

optical monitoring system determines the 

lateral position of a P1 line during machining 

and simultaneously laterally adjusts 

all beams in the machining head. Since all 

beams are positioned at the spacing of the 

cell width, the error caused by monitoring 

an individual line of a bundle is actually 

negligibly small. This adjustment/correction 

takes place without influencing the 

cycle time and enables an inactive zone of 

max 200 µm to be realised on the substrate 

even with non-homogenous temperature 

distribution. This dynamic path tracking is 

already implemented and running in a thin 

film production line. 

Machining examples 

Figures 4-6 present a number of machining 

results from various thin film technologies 

in the P1 through P3 stages. 

References 

1. P-O. Westin et. al.: INFLUENCE 

OF SPACIAL AND TEMPORAL 

LASER BEAM CHARACTERISTICS 

ON THIN-FILM ABLATION. 24th 

EUPVSEC, Hamburg, September 2009. 

Proceedings to be published. 

Dr. Marc Hueske finished his studies of 

electrical engineering at the University of 

Hanover in 1995. In 2001 he received his 

PhD at the Institute of Materials Science at 

the same university. His industrial career 

began in 2000 at LPKF Laser & Electronics 

AG. After being the technical manager of 

LaserMicronics GmbH he was appointed as 

the Innovation Manager of LPKF in 2005. 

He joined LPKF SolarQuipment GmbH as 

the product manager and vice president for 

the laser scribing equipment in 2007. 

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Industry’s growing pains are muddying 2H11 visibility 

Industry’s 

growing pains 

are muddying 

2H11 visibility 

Jon Custer-Topai 

The global solar industry is 

transitioning from a supply and 

demand model to a cyclical 

business cycle that is driven by electricity 

demand, consumer confidence, inflation, 

credit availability, government support 

and consumer stewardship awareness. 

The global solar photovoltaic 3/12 rate of 

growth (Chart 1), based on 50 publically 

traded companies with combined annual 

earnings exceeding U.S. $50 billion, has 

been slowing since the middle of 2010. 

A hypothetical chart (Chart 2) 

borrowed from the electronics industry 

shows the supply chain effect through the 

business cycle with process equipment 

and material sales flourishing during 

expansionary periods and tightening when 

the business cycle contracts as customers 

work down inventories (Chart 3). 

Taiwan revenue in contraction 

Taiwan’s solar manufacturing industry 

revenue free-fall subsided in July 2011 after 

a 2Q11 contraction (Chart 4). It produced 

3 GW of solar cells in 2010 according to 

statistics from the Ministry of Economic 

Affairs and consumed 18% of the global 

equipment in 2010 according to VLSI 

Research (Chart 5). The same monthly 

revenue composite of 17 manufacturers 

shows growth falling into contraction with 

its 3/12 rate of growth under slipping under 

one in June 2011 (Chart 6). 

Slower growth expected by 

global PMI 

The global purchasing managers index is 

also showing slower growth (Chart 7). It is 

a leading indicator for the solar industry by 

three to six months (Chart 8). 

Purchasing managers in the U.S. (Chart 9) 

began to feel that demand was improving 

in July 2011 after a growth slowdown 

which was parallel to the Euro zone (Chart 

10). China and Taiwan PMI growth entered 

contraction based on a diffusion index with 

50 and above showing expansion. 

Japan’s PMI and its industrial 

production (Chart 11) are showing 

remarkable recovery following the 

earthquake and tsunami that took place 

earlier this year. 

The global solar industry grew by 63% 

y/y in 2010 (Chart 12) with crystalline 

semiconductor process equipment and 

materials’ revenue expanding by 120% y/y 

and inverters and power supply revenues 

growing by 86%. 

Electronics vs. solar/ 

photovoltaic 

The global electronics industry (Chart 

13) also saw revenue expansions in 

semiconductor equipment of 104% and 

PCB process equipment revenue growth 

of 62%. A comparison of quarterly growth 

(Chart 14) of a very mature electronics 

industry versus the solar industry shows 

20110601 

Global Solar/Photovoltaic Growth 

Total Industry based upon 60 Company broad sample 

3/12 & 12/12 Rate of Change 

20090107 

%Growth 

BUSINESS CYCLE 

Supply Chain Effect 

12/12 3/12 

Zero Growth 

1.5 

Inventory 

Increases 

Panels 

Cells 

Raw Materials 

Process Equipment 

1 

0 

0.5 

0 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 

07 08 09 10 11 

CALENDAR YEAR 

Expansion 

Inventory 

Reductions 

Time 

Recession 

Chart 1. Chart 2. 



20110615 

Solar/Photovoltaic Inventory/Sales Ratio 

Composite of 60 Public Companies 

Inventory/Sales ($) 

1.50 

1.40 

1.30 

1.20 

1.10 

1.00 

0.90 

0.80 

0.70 

0.60 

0.50 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 

06 07 08 09 10 11 

Inv/Sales 0.62 0.64 0.83 0.69 0.85 0.90 0.78 0.76 0.93 0.80 0.79 0.93 1.44 1.20 0.87 0.56 0.78 0.65 0.68 0.63 0.91 

CY 

Inventories rose 

in 1Q'11 

20110708 

Taiwan Solar/Photovoltaic Panel Companies 

Composite of 17 Manufacturers 

NT$ billions 

20 

18 

16 

14 

12 

10 

8 

6 

4 

2 

0 

2010/2009 Revenue 

Up 80% 

135791113579111357911135791113579111357911135791113579111357911135791113579111357 

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

CALENDAR YEAR 

Big Sun Energy Technology, Daxon, DelSolar, e_TON Solar Tec, Eversol, Gintech, Green Energy Technology (GET), 

Ligitek, Motech, Neo Solar Power, Phoenixtec Power Co (PPC), Precision Silicon, Sino-American Silicon Products, 

Sonartech, Sysgration, Tyntek, Wafer Works 


20110426 

PV Equipment Consumption by Region 

2010 

China 

51% 

Europe 

9% 

20110708 

Taiwan Solar/Photovoltaic Panel Companies 

Composite of 17 Manufacturers 

3/12 rate of change 

2.5 

3/12 Zero Growth 

2 

1.5 

2% 

4% 

4% 18% 

12% 

Other 

1 

0.5 

Korea 

Japan 

N America 

VLSI research 3/11 

Taiwan 

$10.4 Billion 

0 

3579111357911135791113579111357911135791113579111357911135791113579111357 

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

CALENDAR YEAR 

Big Sun Energy Technology, Daxon, DelSolar, e_TON Solar Tec, Eversol, Gintech, Green Energy Technology (GET), 

Ligitek, Motech, Neo Solar Power, Phoenixtec Power Co (PPC), Precision Silicon, Sino-American Silicon Products, 

Sonartech, Sysgration, Tyntek, Wafer Works 


1Q11 photovoltaic growth slowing to 

35.8% versus 11.8% q/q revenue growth for 

electronics. Both electronic equipment and 

semiconductor shipments (Chart 15) lead 

the solar industry by about three months 

based on a 3/12 rate of change. 

The U.S. had a record 1Q11 in 

installations with 252 MW installed (Chart 

16) in comparison to 152 MW installed 

in 2Q10. Historical data (Chart 17) shows 

that every year, over the past five years, has 

started with a weak Q1 in comparison to 

the total quarterly distribution, which is 

followed by a strong 2H. 

Supply/demand imbalances 

causing growing pains 

According to a study published by 

Greentech Media in May 2011, there was a 

module supply shortage in 2010 (Chart 18) 

with 13.9 GW of bankable module supply 

versus 14.1 GW of demand, which was 

followed by a huge cell/module capacity 

expansion (Chart 19), which caused an 

imbalance of available supply versus 

expected installations (Chart 20) and is 

expected to reach parity in 3Q11 and hit 

another record year (Chart 21), based on 

projections from IMS Research. 

1H11 has faced a polysilicon supply 

constraint that is affecting small to medium 

cell manufacturers and those without an 

integrated business model (Chart 22). 

Revenues are in record territories and 

quarterly rate of growth remains strong 

(Chart 23) as was the case with the inverter 

industry in mid 2010 (Chart 24 & 25). 

Business is slowing and we are moving 

towards contraction in the business 

cycle but there is a very good chance that 

“certainty” will be restored as the recovery 

continues to chug along. Growing pains 

continue to plaque the industry and are 

causing supply imbalances as the industry 

continues to surpass expectations. Growth 

appears to be stabilizing to 10-20% y/y in 

2011 barring further economic disruptions. 

Have faith, there are a LOT of planned 

installations in the pipeline. 

BIPV 

BIPV products market to grow to over $2 

billion (USD) in 2011; BIPV glass will reach 

$1.17 billion, tiles and floating panels to hit 

$691 million and flexible BIPV products 

should reach $153 million.—NanoMarkets 

Cells modules panels 

Asia’s share of PV cell production to reach 

85% in 2011.—Photon and IEK 

Global PV module inventories to end 2Q11 

at 8.6 GW on weak European photovoltaic 

market demand in 1H11.—Solarbuzz 

Taiwan-based solar cells will grab 16% 

(NT$253.1 billion, US$8.8 billion) global 

market in 2011.—PIDA 

1SolTech moved to 53,000 SF facility in 

Dallas, Texas. 

3Sun (JV between Enel Green Power, Sharp 

and STMicroelectronics) opened 160 MW 

photovoltaic panel plant in Catania, Italy. 

Arise Technologies plans to double 

production at its photovoltaic cell facility 

in Germany. 




Atonometrics installed and qualified a 

continuous solar simulator at Fraunhofer 

ISE in Freiburg, Germany. 

Bharat Heavy Electricals and Bharat 

Electronics are jointly investing Rs 2,000 

crore to set up a solar photovoltaic modules 

production unit near Hyderabad, India. 

Blue Chip Energy GmbH filed for 

insolvency. 

Bosch 

• inaugurated solar cell production plant 

in Arnstadt, Germany. 

• will invest EUR 520 million to build 

new integrated photovoltaics production 

site in Malaysia’s Batu Kawan 

region with annual cell output of 640 

MW peak per year 

BP Solar 

• closed its Frederick office. 

• stopped panel sales, changed focus to 

projects. 

Canadian Solar appointed Michael Potter 

as senior VP and CFO and Dr. Harry Ruda 

as independent director. 

centrotherm photovoltaics is working on 

double-sided LDSE, which optimizes both 

the front and rear surfaces of a solar cell to 

deliver efficiencies of up to 22%. 

China Sunergy 

• is investing RMB 1.8 Billion to expand 

silicon cell production by 1 GW in 

Yangzhou City, China. 

• opened U.S. HQ in San Francisco. 

• named Willis He, CEO. 

Conergy’s India unit raised annual solar 

photovoltaic module production capacity 

to 25 MW. 

DE Solar Holdings acquired additional 

2,520,000 common shares of Day4 Energy. 

Eclipsall Energy opened 120,000 SF, 64 

MW manufacturing plant in Scarborough, 

Ontario. 

EcoSolifer Kft. will launch 25 MW 

solar module manufacturing in Csorna, 

Hungary, for 2012, which will be increased 

to 52 MW for 2013. 

Enfoton Solar added MBJ Solutions’ 

inspection system. 

Evergreen Solar 

• invested 17 million U.S. dollars in cash 

and equipment in its Wuhan, China, 

production site. 

• scaled back solar panel supply as a 

result of falling panel prices and a shift 

away from the company’s panel business. 

Fluitecnik revamped complete 

photovoltaic module product line. 

Fuji Electric teamed with Coretec to 

develop sheet of solar power cells that can 

be laid down over idle farmland. 

Hanergy opened 300 MW solar cell facility 

in Chengdu, China. 

Hanwha SolarOne named Ki-Joon Hong 

CEO, Jung Pyo Seo CFO, Chris Eberspacher 

CTO and Justin Koo Yung Lee CCO. 

Industrial Technology Research Institute 

upgraded solar panel certification in 

Taiwan with addition of fire-testing system. 

Isofoton 

• named Michael Peck chairman of 

ISOFOTON North America. 

• is opening $32.2 million manufacturing 

plant in Napoleon, Ohio with initial 

50 MW crystalline silicon solar panel 

assembly line and 100 MW solar cell 

line. 

JA Solar appointed Min Cao to CFO. 

Jetion Solar opened new 20,160-SF sales 

and service center in Charlotte, North 

Carolina. 

JinkoSolar 

• established new R&D center. 

• will launch first generation of its “Blue 

Cell” modules in 3Q11. 

Jusung Engineering and MEMC to jointly 

build and operate 100 MW (initial capacity) 

high-efficiency solar cell production 

facility. 

Lanco Infra invested Rs 1,700 crore 

for second phase for manufacturing 

polysilicon, ingots, wafers, photovoltaic 

cells and modules with capacities 

equivalent to 250 MW/year. 

LDK Solar 

• appointed Maurice Wai-fung Ngai as 

an independent director from its board 

of directors. 

• named Ron Kenedi President Of LDK 

Solar Tech USA. 

MEMC opened new module 

manufacturing base at Flextronics-owned 

site in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. 

Neo Solar opened its third factory in 

Taiwan. 

NexPower began producing uc-Si tandem 

modules with 10.4% efficiency. 

Oxford Photovoltaics received £650k 

funding led by MTI Partners for 

development of solid-state dye sensitized 

solar cells for BIPV. 

Panasonic 

• will begin producing next-generation 

solar cells in Amagasaki, Hyogo 

Prefecture, at the end of fiscal 2012. 

• subsidiary Sanyo Electric eliminated 

10,000 employees. 

Q-Cells 

• added 130 MW production line for 

Q.PEAK high-performance modules at 

HQ in Thalheim, Switzerland. 

• is spending 17 million euros ($25 million) 

to expand output of higher-priced 

modules as a way to diversify away 

from its main products 

• elected Eicke Weber as new Supervisory 

Board member. 

• set an 18.1% efficiency world record for 

its polycrystalline solar modules. 

QSolar 

• added second 20 MW/year (about $30 

20110701 

Global "Purchasing Managers" Index 

DIFFUSION INDEX 

60 

70 

58 

56 

60 

54 

52 

50 

EXPANSION 

50 

CONTRACTION 

48 

40 

:"The April PMI data signal that global manufacturing has 

46 

moved onto a lower growth plane, with rates of expansion in 

44 output and new orders cooling further from the sky-high 

30 

levels seen around the turn of the year. Growth is still 

42 above its long-run average, however, and has held up well 

considering some of the shocks hitting the global economy 

40 

so far in 2011. Job creation is also ongoing and 

20 

38 international trade volumes still rising." May 3, 2011 

36 

10 

34 

32 

0 

1 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 9111 3 5 7 

03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

JPMorgan 

20110701 

World Solar/Photovoltaic, Electronic Equipment 

& Semiconductor Shipments 

1.9 

1.7 

1.5 

1.3 

1.1 

0.9 

0.7 

0.5 


PV "0" Growth Global PMI 

3 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

Source: Custer Consulting Group 

CALENDAR YEAR 




million/year) production line for solar 

PV panels in Shanghai, China. 

• plans to start shipments of Kruciwatt 

PV Panels in 4Q11. 

Rare Earth Solar plans to open 28 MW 

solar panel manufacturing facility in 

Beatrice, Nebraska in 2013. 

REC appointed Luc Grare senior VP sales 

and marketing, cells & modules. 

Samsung plans to invest USD $5.5 billion 

in the development of solar technology 

and production by 2020. 

Semprius is opening a solar cell 

manufacturing facility near Henderson, 

North Carolina. 

Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group 

moved from Huntington Beach, California, 

to Camas, Washington. 

Siliken Canada dropped two shifts in 

Windsor, Ontario. 

Solar Industries AG is building a PV 

module production facility in Langenthal, 

Switzerland. 

SolarWorld 

• began offering 10 year Extended 

Workmanship Warranty for its highperformance 

solar panels. 

• is expanding production in Germany 

and the US to over 1 GW by the end 

of 2011. 

• sold its shares in South Korean JV 

module plant to focus on German and 

U.S. production. 

Solon hired Alvarez & Marsal to develop a 

restructuring plan. 

Suniva is expanding its Norcross, Georgia, 

headquarters’ photovoltaic (PV) module 

research and assembly to a total of 25-30 

MW modules/year. 

SunPower 

• is planning to invest $2 billion for a 

third facility in the Philippines. 

• plans to own and operate 320,000 SF 

capacity solar panel manufacturing 

facility in Mexicali, Mexico. 

Suntech Power developed an efficient 

hybrid solar cell than can reduce the cost 

of solar power by 10% to 20%. 

SVTC Solar is building a solar photovoltaic 

manufacturing development facility in 

California’s Silicon Valley. 

Tainergy Tech is expanding its total poly-Si 

solar cell annual production capacity to 

560 MWp by the end of 2011. 

Tek Seng is building a RM94-mil 60 MW 

solar photovoltaic cell manufacturing plant 

in Bukit Minyak Science Park. 

Trina Solar introduced a ten-year warranty. 

Umoe Solar cancelled plans for solar cells 

plant in Miramic, Canada. 

Yingli Americas expects to capture 15% 

of North American solar market with 

cumulative shipments of 250 MWs to 23 

U.S. states, as well as Canada, Mexico and 

the Caribbean. 

EMS & assembly 

Celestica 

• unveiled 1-million SF solar panel 

manufacturing production facility in 

Ontario, Canada. 

• began manufacturing high-efficiency 

20110701 

20110630 

U.S. "Purchasing Managers" Index 


64 

62 

60 

58 

56 

54 

52 

EXPANSION 

50 

CONTRACTION 

48 

46 

44 

42 

40 

38 

36 

34 

32 

30 

1 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7101 4 7 

94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

Institute for Supply Management 

www.ism.ws/ 

Japan Industrial Production 

(2005=100.0) 

(Seasonally Adjusted) 

112 

108 

104 

100 

96 

92 

88 

84 

80 

76 

72 

68 

1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 

03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

Calendar Year 

www.meti.go.jp/english/statistics/tyo/iip/index.html 

62 

60 

58 

56 

54 

52 

50 

48 

46 

44 

42 

40 

38 

36 

34 

32 

20110522 


Global "Solar/Photovoltaic Foodchain" Growth 

2010 vs. 2009 

20100918 

Total Industry 

Vertically Integrated 

Cells, Modules, Panels 

Thin Film Processes 

Thin Film Process Equip 

Crystalline Semiconductor Processes 

Purchasing Managers Indices 

6 912 3 6 9123 6 9123 6 912 3 6 912 3 6 912 3 6 9123 6 9123 6 912 3 6 912 3 6 912 3 6 912 3 6 9123 6 9123 6 

97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

58 

56 

54 

52 

50 

48 

46 

44 

42 

40 


Eurozone 

China 

1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 

04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

Other Process Equip 

Materials 

Inverters & Power Supplies 

Batteries & Storage 

Installations & End Applications 

11 

18 

24 

29 

37 

40 

EXPANSION 

CONTRACTION 

1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 10 1 4 7 

02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

63 

69 

78 

86 

120 

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 

% Change 

US$ equivalent at fluctuating exchange; based upon industry composites including acquisitions 


58 

56 

54 

52 

50 

48 

46 

44 

42 

40 

38 

36 

34 

32 

30 

28 


72 

68 

64 

60 

56 

52 

48 

44 

40 

36 

32 

28 

24 

20 


Japan 

Taiwan 

EXPANSION 

CONTRACTION 

EXPANSION 

CONTRACTION 

1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 

04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 





solar panels in Ontario, Canada for 

Opsun. 

Flextronics 

• added 400 jobs in Newmarket, Ontario 

to make MEMC photovoltaic panels 

used by SunEdison. 

• is expanding solar panel assembly in 

Johor, Malaysia, from 500 MW to 1.2 

GW by the end of 2012. 

• added electric motorcycle production 

line in Sarvar, Hungary, for Brammo. 

Foxconn/Hon Hai 

• to enter solar industry in 2H11. 

• Hon Hai to construct NT$100 B. 

Automation Park in Taichung which 

will accommodate machine tool, 

automatic equipment, robot and solar 

energy factories. 

Sanmina-SCI received end-to-end 

manufacturing services contract for 

KACO’s blueplanet 02xi inverters. 

Market & business conditions 

Asia Pacific photovoltaic markets are set to 

grow rapidly and are projected to account 

for approximately one-quarter of global 

demand by 2015, up from 11% in 2010 – 

Solarbuzz 

Australia installed 383 MW of solar panels 

in 2010, a 480% increase over 2009.— 

APVA 

China doubled its solar energy target for 

2015 from 5 GW to 10 GW.—NEA 

Global market for solar photovoltaics has 

expanded from $2.5 billion in 2000 to 

$71.2 billion in 2010.—Clean Edge 

Global solar photovoltaic manufacturing 

industry added 38.2 GW manufacturing 

capacity over past five years; thin film solar 

photovoltaic added almost 7.5 GW or 20% 

of total capacity.—Report Linker 

IMS Research increased global installed 

photovoltaic 2011 forecast to 22 GW. 

Italy solar system installations to reach 

5.5GW in 2011.—GIFI President 

Japan produced 1.34 TWh from solar 

photovoltaic generation during fiscal year 

2010.—Japan’s Ministry of Economy 

Philippines DoE halved solar installation 

target to 50 MW; wind at 200 MW. 

Solar market value to grow 62.67% over 

next ten years from US $71.2 billion in 

2010 to US $113.6 billion in 2020.—Clean 

Edge 

Solar PV balance-of-system costs to 

increase from approximately 44.8% (US 

$1.43 per watt) of a typical, utility-scale 

crystalline silicon (c-Si) project to 50.6% in 

2012.—GTM Research 

Solarbuzz has since revised its estimation 

of 2010 module purchases to 19.3 GW (up 

from a prior estimate of 18.2 GW), and 

now expects 2011 to come in at 20.3 GW. 

Taiwan‘s output volume of solar cells 

reached 3GW in 2010, the second highest 

worldwide.—Ministry of Economic Affairs 

U.S. photovoltaic pipeline grows to 

17GW.—Solarbuzz 

U.S. residential solar penetration is around 

0.2% with 130,000 installations versus 65 

million residences. 

U.S. residential solar system installed 

prices dropped 8.2% y/y to $6.41 per watt 

in 1Q11; installed price for non-residential 

solar projects dropped 15.9% to $5.35 per 

watt.—SEIA 

20110701 

Global Electronic Supply Chain Growth 

2010 vs. 2009 

13 

7 

27 

10 

2 

3 

20 

17 

19 

Electronic Equipment 

Military 

Business & Office 

Instruments & Controls 

Medical 

Communication 

Internet 

Computer 

Storage 

SEMI Equip 

Semiconductors (SIA) 

Passive Components 

Component Distributors 

EMS-Large 

EMS-Medium 

ODM 

PCB 

PCB Process Equip 

Solar/Photovoltaic Industry 

18 

19 

23 

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 

% Change 

US$ equivalent at fluctuating exchange; based upon industry composites including acquisitions 

32 

32 

34 

40 

62 

63 

104 

20110705 20100313 

Electronic Equipment vs Photovoltaic Revenues 

Quarterly Global Growth 

Photovoltaic Industry Outgrows Electronic Equipment 

% $ Growth vs same quarter in prior year 

120.0 

100.0 

80.0 

60.0 

40.0 

20.0 

0.0 

-20.0 

Elec Equip 

Photovoltaic 

-40.0 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 

07 08 09 10 11 

11.7 13.8 11.3 -12.5 12.4 13.1 11.0 

Elec Equip 9.9 14.5 12.5 6.1 -7.5 -12.4 -8.1 6.9 14.3 11.3 

Photovoltaic 48.5 47.7 81.7 61.6 67.7 98.5 55.8 10.1 -24.8 -35.7 -20.3 35.7 70.0 89.0 66.8 41.9 35.0 

Custer Consulting Group 7/11 


World Solar/Photovoltaic, Electronic Equipment 

& Semiconductor Shipments 

20110701 

20110703 

U.S. PV Installations 

Q1 2010 - Q1 2011 

1.9 


PV "0" Growth SIA El Equip 

1000 MWdc 

Full Year Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 

1.7 

1.5 

1.3 

1.1 

0.9 

800 

600 

400 

361 

187 

0.7 

0.5 

3 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 9123 6 

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 

CALENDAR YEAR 

Source: Custer Consulting Group 

200 

0 

79 105 

160 

290 

435 

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Q1'11 

GTM Research 6/11 


187 

152 

252 



U.S. solar industry installed 252 MW in 

1Q11; manufactured 348 MW.—SEIA 

U.S. solar PV installations in 2010 reached 

890 MW: 262 MW were residential, 374 

MW were commercial and 384 MW were 

in the utility sector.—IREC 

UK installed capacity for photovoltaic 

plants rose by 56% to 121.6 MW between 

March and June as solar plants soar ahead 

of government tariff cuts. 

Worldwide photovoltaic panel sales 

reached US $82 billion in 2010; electrical 

generation capacity installed was 17.8 

GW.—EPIC 

Worldwide solar installations reached 

6.6 GW in 1H11; expected to accelerate 

to 14.7GW in 2H11 for 21.2GW for total 

year—IHS iSuppli 

Materials & components 

Silver industrial demand will grow from 

about 487.4 million ounces recorded in 

2010 to 665.9 million ounces in 2015.— 

GFMS Limited 

Solar panel makers use 11% of the world’s 

supply of silver. 

Air Products acquired semiconductor 

equipment manufacturer Poly-Flow 

Engineering LLC which also makes 

equipment for the medical, optical fiber 

and solar industries. 

Applied Nanotech entered license 

agreement for its solar ink and paste 

technology with Sichuan Anxian Yinhe 

Construction and Chemical Group. 

Christopher Associates introduced 25-year 

solar material testing programs. 

DIC developed coating agent that can 

weatherproof resin films resulting in solar 

cells that are not only 50-60% lighter but 

also bendable. 

Dow Chemical 

• Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris 

was appointed by U.S. President Barack 

Obama as co-chair of the newly formed 

Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. 

• is building plants to manufacture 

ENLIGHT polyolefin encapsulant 

film in Map Ta Phut, Thailand, and one 

in Schkopau, Germany, in 2012. 

DuPont 

• acquired Innovalight. 

• expanded licensing agreement with 

Toppan to boost production of Tedlar® 

PV2400 for solar modules. 

• Glass Laminating Solutions increased 

prices by 5-8 percent. 

Ellsworth Adhesives added HumiSeal 

UV40-Solar conformal coatings to its 

product line. 

Engineered Conductive Materials 

• appointed EMJS Tech to represent its 

Sol-Ag line of conductive adhesives 

and grid inks in Korea. 

• debuted DB-1538-2 ribbon attach conductive 

adhesive. 

Fisher-Barton opened new materials 

research lab. 

FLEXcon added 20,000-SF R&D facility at 

its Spencer headquarters. 

Heraeus Photovoltaic Business 

• is expanding crystalline solar cell front 

and back-side silver paste capacity in 

Singapore. 

• is tripling the size of its global technical 

staff to keep up with the growing 

industry demand for its photovoltaic 

20110615 

15000 

10000 

Solar/Photovoltaic Financials 

Composite of 60 Public Companies 

Revenue, Net Income & Inventory 

US$ (millions) 

Note: currencies converted to US$ 

@ fluctuating exchange 

+35% 

20110703 

Global PV Installations vs. Bankable Module Supply 

2007-2013E 

MWdc (000) 

35.0 

Global Installations Bankable Module Supply 

29.7 

30.0 

25.0 

24.6 

5000 

20.0 

19.3 

17.9 

21.1 

0 

15.0 

14.1 

13.9 

15.0 

-5000 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 

06 07 08 09 10 11 

3327 3516 4795 5999 9022 9253 6183 7704 11338 12858 11816 

Revenue 2912 4279 4090 6832 6627 7462 5086 10216 8731 14524 

Income -508 -246 -414 -626 -775 -244 -719 -813 -413 -54 -1068 -1483 -1630 -2162 -4097 -3056 -2651 -2061 -1582 -1329 -2276 

Inventory 1792 2124 2919 2944 3494 4310 4694 5176 6182 7202 7299 6918 7323 7438 6666 5712 6772 7359 8732 9206 10727 

Note that income & inventory data are incomplete 

Chart 17. 

9.9 

10.0 

7.1 

5.0 

0.0 

2009 2010 E 2011 E 2012 E 2013 E 

GTM Research 5/11 

Chart 18. 

20101218 

PV/Solar Cell/Module Capacity Expansions 

2010 

20110220 

Global PV Module Production Capacity 

& PV Installations 

LDK Solar 

REC 

40 Capacity-Annualized GW 0 

Capacity-Annualized 

Installations 

Installations GW 

6 

Suntech Power 

5 

JA Solar 

30 

Yingli Green Energy 

4 

Tianwei New Energy 

Canadian Solar 

Trina Solar Energy 

iSuppli 12/10 

Jinko Solar 

Motech 

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 

Megawatts 

20 

10 

0 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 

09 10 11 

IMS Research www.pvmarketresearch.com 2/11 


3 

2 

1 




products 

Indium promoted Jeff Anweiler to Eastern 

U.S. and Canada sales manager and Tom 

Pearson to manager western U.S. and 

global customer service. 

Industrifonden is investing SEK 18.5 

million in Sol Voltaics. 

LEONI introduced new PV solar cable that 

needs 20 percent less space. 

Mitsubishi Chemical began manufacturing 

adhesive film used in solar cells. 

Nano Terra formed Microline PV LLC, 

which develops and commercializes PV 

metallization technology. 

OM Group acquired Vacuumschmelze. 

Rogers Corporation and Himag Solutions 

entered planar transformer strategic 

alliance. 

Sichuan Anxian Yinhe Construction 

and Chemical Group are building a 

manufacturing plant in China to produce 

solar inks and pastes. 

Solutia is building a PVB resin plant in 

Kuantan, Malaysia. 

Uniseal opened a facility in Rétság, 

Hungary. 

Viking Tech began production of heatdissipation 

ceramic substrates of HCPV. 

Yamaichi Electronics introduced mature, 

flexible universal junction box for 

crystalline modules. 

Process equipment 

Photovoltaic equipment spending for 

c-Si ingot-to-module and thin film panels 

is expected to fall 47%, from a predicted 

USD$14.2 billion in 2011 to $7.6 billion in 

2012.—SolarBuzz 

Applied Materials is establishing an 

equipment-manufacturing base in Jiangsu 

Province, China. 

Baker Solar, a division of M.E. Baker, 

introduced FlexTool, an inline wet bench. 

BTU International hired Gary Cai as 

product manager for in-line diffusion 

equipment. 

DCG Systems acquired Thermosensorik. 

DEK Solar appointed Alex Kuo as global 

business director, alternative energy. 

Despatch Industries was acquired by 

Illinois Tool Works. 

GT Solar 

• added 20,000 SF in Salem, 

Massachusetts. 

• received orders from two new customers 

in Asia for polysilicon production 

equipment totaling $81.7 million. 

• received US$55.1 million in new orders 

for polysilicon production equipment. 

Hitachi Zosen began solar film machine 

output in China. 

Jenoptik introduced infrared disk lasers 

for crystalline PV elements. 

Meyer Burger acquired 82% stake in Roth 

& Rau. 

National Renewable Energy Laboratory 

developed 1000x faster assembly line test 

for solar quantum efficiency. 

Rehm introduced fast firing systems 

for mono and polycrystalline solar cell 

manufacturing. 

Reis Robotics installed crystalline silicon 

module production line at Dow Corning’s 

20110220 

Global Solar PV Installations 

2011F (MWp) 

Germany 

6500 

20110615 

2000 

1500 

Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing 

9 Company Composite 

Revenue, Net Income & Inventory 

US$ (millions) 

Converted @ fluctuating exchange rates 

+120% 

Italy 

3000 

585 

300 

200 

500 1200 

300 

250 

250315 

1800 650 600250 

ROW 

India 

Australia 

1000 

500 

0 

August 2010 

France 

Spain 

Czech Rep 

Belgium 

Rest of Europe 

Data Source: Needham 1/11 

USA 

Canada 

Japan 

S Korea 

China 

-500 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 

06 07 08 09 10 11 

293 453 572 1106 1357 1568 

Revenue 115 142 190 232 247 395 456 549 839 999 803 536 666 776 1655 

Income 6 11 20 9 37 48 65 65 91 177 124 -349 -73 -243 5 -92 16 85 139 201 187 

Inventory 54 56 54 52 212 305 380 544 768 978 1158 946 833 665 666 686 739 707 717 773 776 

5N Plus, Amtech, LDK Solar, Precision Silicon, Renesolar, Sino-American Silicon, SUMCO, Timminco, Wafer Works 

Chart 21. 

Chart 22. 

20110522 


Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing 


20110522 


Inverters & Power Supplies 


3 Rate of Growth (1.0=no growth) 12/12 3/12 

3 Rate of Growth (1.0=no growth) 12/12 3/12 

2.5 

Zero Growth 

2.5 

Zero Growth 

2 

2 

1.5 

1.5 

1 

1 

0.5 

0.5 

0 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 

07 08 09 10 11 

CALENDAR YEAR 

0 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 

07 08 09 10 11 

CALENDAR YEAR 



Asian Solar Solutions Application Center 

in Jincheon, Korea. 

ReneSola 

• began producing in-house steel wire 

used for slicing solar wafers. 

• developed new generation of higher 

capacity casting furnaces. 

SolarEdge launched commercial 

production line at Flextronics Israel plant 

in Migdal Ha’Emek. 

SOLON named Joe Benga VP and GM, 

power plants. 

Spire 

• expanded its Advanced Technology 

Center Lab. 

• named JEIS its solar representation to 

South Korea. 

• received 12 MW PV semi-automated 

module manufacturing line contract 

from REIL in Jaipur, India. 

teamtechnik increased production capacity 

in China. 

Thermotron developed new environmental 

test chamber for extra-large PV modules. 

Torrey Hills Technologies received 

purchase order for its HSH infrared fast 

fire furnace from Narec. 

Vytek introduced full line of purposebuilt 

laser solutions for photovoltaic 

manufacturing. 

Silicon ingot wafer 

China’s polysilicon output to grow from 

44,000 metric tons in 2010 to 290,000 tons 

in 2014.—China Knowledge 

1366 Technologies received $150 million 

loan from U.S. Department of Energy to 

build two solar PV silicon wafer plants. 

ARISE Technologies produced more than 

400 kilograms of 7N+ purity silicon at its 

silicon facility. 

Bharat Electronics formed a new company 

to manufacture wafers and modules for the 

solar cells. 

Birla Surya invested $1.2 b to expand 

silicon wafer capacity. 

Calisolar received conditional commitment 

for a $275 million federal loan guarantee to 

ramp up a silicon manufacturing facility in 

Ohio. 

GCL Poly 

• placed US$193-million order with 

Meyer Burger for wire saws and wafer 

inspection systems. 

• began construction on R&D facility in 

Suzhou, China. 

JA Solar acquired wafer maker Silver Age 

for $171.5 mln. 

MEMC Singapore and Suntech Power 

terminated long-term solar wafer supply 

agreement. 

Nippon Yakin Kogyo ramped up 

production of alloy used in solar cell 

manufacturing equipment by 50% to more 

than 1,500 tons in fiscal 2011. 

Nitol Solar appointed Valery Rostokin as 

CEO. 

Praxair is supplying high-purity hydrogen 

to Hemlock Semiconductor’s $1.2 billion 

polysilicon manufacturing facility under 

construction in Clarksville, Tennessee. 

PVA TePla Group developed innovative 

crystal-growing system. 

Schmid Silicon Technology began 

polysilicon production at its monosilane 

based pilot line in Saxony, Germany. 

SEMI publishes standard to specify silicon 

feedstock for solar PV manufacturing. 

SiC Processing commissioned production 

lines 3 and 4 in Baoding, China, adding 

additional 30,000 tons/year capacity. 

Sino-American Silicon, Wafer Works plan 

to boost production capacity by at least 

50% in 2011 to keep up with demand. 

Suntech Power developed improved 

method to make high-grade silicon wafers. 

Taiwan Sumiden Steel Wire commenced 

solar-grade crystalline silicon ingot saw 

wire production in Taiwan. 

Walsin Lihwa is investing in 18,000 metric 

ton/ year polycrystalline silicon factory in 

Taiwan that is scheduled to be operational 

in 2013. 

Storage & batteries 

Portable battery market to rise from $20.3 

billion in global revenues in 2010 to $30.5 

billion by 2015.—Pike Research 

Thin film 

Global thin film solar PV market expected 

to grow from $3.2 billion in 2010 to $4.3 

billion in 2015 and $15.7 billion in 2020.— 

TFPV research 

Abound Solar approved to receive several 

million dollars in incentives from Indiana 

Economic Development Corp. to open a 

factory in Tipton County. 

Advanced Energy appointed Garry 

Rogerson, Ph.D, as CEO. 

Anwell Technologies’ subsidiary, Henan 

Sungen Solar Fab plans to increase thin 

film capacity to 1.5 GW within the next 

five years. 

Bloo Solar hired and appointed John 

Bohland VP of module operations. 

DuPont Shenzhen, China, production 

facility became world’s first thin film solar 

module manufacturer to earn LEED Gold 

rating. 

Eight19 developed low cost plastic solar 

cells. 

First Solar 

• has manufactured 4 GW of thin-film 

photovoltaic solar modules ever since 

20110501 

GWp 

8.0 

System installations will reach 

7.0 22.4GWp in 2011, while shipments 

of PV inverters will hit 24.5 GWp 

6.0 

5.0 

4.0 

3.0 

2.0 

1.0 

PV Inverter Shipments 

0.0 

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 

09 10 11 

Digitimes Research 4/11 

Chart 25. 

the beginning of commercial production 

in 2002. 

• began producing solar modules at its 

second factory at Frankfurt an der 

Oder, Germany. 

• achieved world record 17.3% efficiency 

for CdTe solar PV. 

Fujifilm developed flexible CIGS PV submodule 

with 15.0% efficiency. 

GE is planning to establish the largest solar 

panel factory in the U.S. 

Hanergy Holding opened 300 MW thinfilm 

photovoltaic factory in Sichuan 

province, which it expects to increase to 2 

GW in 2012. 

NexPower achieved 10.4% conversion rate 

for microcrystalline tandem-junction thinfilm 

PV modules. 

Q-Cells introduced Q.SMART thin film 

modules (With aperture efficiencies of up 

to 14.7%) for North American PV market. 

Solar Frontier’s 900 MW Kunitomi solar 

plant in Miyazaki, Japan, reached full 

commercial operation. 

Tata Steel, Dyesol produce world’s largest 

dye sensitized photovoltaic module. 

United Solar achieved 16.3% efficiency 

with Nano-Crystalline technology. 

XsunX CIGSolar reached 16.3% efficiency 

confirmed by NREL testing 

Thin film & materials 

Airtech International released 

fluoropolymer-based frontsheet solar film. 

Beneq launched roll-to-roll ALD system 

for wide flexible substrates. 

Dow Chemical developed ENLIGHT 

polyolefin encapsulant film for thin film 

photovoltaics. 

SoLayTec sold the first four of its Al2O3 

ultrafast ALD (atomic layer deposition) 

process development tools. 

Tosoh SMD established thin film 

sputtering target manufacturing subsidiary 

in Shanghai, China. 

Veeco exited CIGS thin-film PV systems 

business.

Interview: Ashok Chandak—NXP Semiconductors 

Interview 

Ashok Chandak— 

NXP Semiconductors 

NXP Semiconductors has turned its attention to the smart grid and related applications. It has released a solution 

that is said to extract up to 30 percent more power from a solar panel compared to traditional PWM controllers. 

In an interaction, Ashok Chandak, senior director, global sales and marketing, NXP Semiconductors 

India, further dwells on this solution. 

How can NXP’s solution extract up to 30 

percent more power from a solar panel 

compared to traditional PWM controllers, 

for example in application like battery 

chargers 

At NXP, the focus is on maximizing the 

energy that can be extracted from each 

panel: the higher the energy that can be 

used from a given system, the lower the 

cost per kWh of produced energy, resulting 

in a more cost effective solution. NXP’s 

low-power IC dedicated to performing the 

maximum power point tracking (MPPT) 

algorithms combined with its patent-pending 

MPPT algorithm can extract up to 30 

percent more power from a solar panel 

than traditional PWM controllers in an 

application such as battery charging. 

The industry is at the beginning of a 

new era and therefore the most cost-effective 

and energy-efficient solar system architecture 

is yet to be determined. Distributed 

power-management systems seem to be on 

everybody’s list. The overriding question is 

whether it is best to move energy around 

the system with DC voltages or introduce 

micro-inverter technology that converts 

DC to AC at each panel output. Regardless 

of the twists and turns of the system-architecture 

competition, NXP Semiconductors 

is well positioned to lead the way. 

In the two distinct ways of making 

PV energy generation more efficient— 

design and superior semiconductor performance—NXP 

has already made significant 

contributions. It recently introduced 

the MPT612, a low-power IC dedicated 

to performing the Maximum Power Point 

Tracking (MPPT) function that optimizes 

power extraction in solar applications. 

When running NXP’s patent-pending 

MPPT algorithm, the MPT612 can extract 

up to 30 percent more power from a solar 

panel than traditional PWM controllers 


Interview: Ashok Chandak—NXP Semiconductors 

in an application like battery charging 

through dynamically tracking Maximum 

Power Point (MPP) of a panel and making 

sure that the PV panel always operates at 

the MPP. In the case of non-MPPT charge 

controllers, the panel operates at the prevailing 

battery voltage which is quite different 

from the MPP voltage there by 

extracting much less power from the panel. 

Thus by making sure that the panel operates 

at MPP, NXP’s solution extracts up to 

30 percent more power from panel when 

compared to a non-MPPT system. 

How does it create algorithms for accommodating 

the environmental changes 

experienced by solar panels and the 

idiosyncrasies of the PV modules themselves 

Advances in the ability of photovoltaic cells 

to convert more solar energy into electrical 

energy typically receive a good deal of 

attention, largely because the typical efficiency 

of a commercial PV cell remains 

limited to only 10-20 percent, depending 

on the cell technology. 

A critical assumption is that all the 

panels behave exactly in the same way. This 

is, in fact, seldom the case. First, manufacturing 

variations cause the PV cells inside 

the panel to slightly vary in the current 

they produce. More important are the environmental 

factors such as shading and dirt. 

Partially dirty, shaded or inoperative cells 

do not capture as much sunlight and therefore 

produce less energy and a lower current. 

Variations between the cells/panels 

lead to a significant reduction of system 

output power. A shaded area of 10 percent 

on one panel can reduce overall panel 

output power by more than 30 percent. 

The overall system efficiency of photovoltaic 

cells can be degraded significantly 

by commonplace events such as shade 

falling unevenly on individual panels, or 

objects such as leaves, dirt or bird droppings 

falling on the panels. 

NXP Semiconductors has been 

improving conversion performance by 

developing technologies in both the hardware 

and software domains. It continues 

to create algorithms for accommodating 

the environmental changes experienced by 

solar panels and the idiosyncrasies of the 

PV modules themselves. 

Maximum power point (MPP) of a PV 

panel continuously varies based on illumination 

and temperature, and in case of 

a shadow there can be even multiple peak 

points. NXP’s solution detects the dynamically 

changing maximum power point of 

(MPP) the PV panel and makes sure that 

the system always operates at this MPP. It 

also detects all the peaks occurring in case 

of shadow, compares them and latches to 

the peak that delivers maximum power. 

This tracking, comparison and latching 

to MPP is done at a faster rate than the 

environmental changes, and thus the algorithms 

address all environmental changes 

very effectively. 

How does NXP provide a range of ultra 

low power microcontrollers, drivers, 

MOSFET and other components tuned 

to the needs of solar that deliver higher 

performance and higher efficiency 

NXP has many technologies and competences 

that are going to play an important 

role in making the solar solution more 

affordable. We offer a range of ultra low 

power microcontrollers, drivers, MOSFET 

and other components tuned to the needs 

of solar that deliver higher performance 

and higher efficiency. 

In the design domain, NXP has contributed 

a major innovation with its 

DC-DC converter used at the panel level. 

NXP’s “Delta Converter” equalizes the voltage 

differences between the panels in an 

installation. Different from other solutions 

in the market, which process all the power 

produced by the PV panel, NXP’s Delta 

Converter evens out voltage differences 

between neighboring panels by exchanging 

energy among them. When there is 

no difference, the converter is not active. 

Benefits include less energy consumed in 

the conversion process and higher reliability 

because the converter doesn’t operate 

continuously. 

What are the products that NXP has 

developed so far that can go on to become 

the workhorses for the solar economy 

NXP has already developed and is developing 

semiconductor products that have the 

potential to become the workhorses of the 

solar economy. These include: 

• Dedicated ICs and patented software 

for maximum power point tracking; 

• Wireless and power-line communication 

chips for inter-panel communication; 

• HV drivers for DC/AC converters 

and LV drivers for DC/DC converters; 

• Controllers, power MOSFETS and 

high and low voltage drivers for efficient 

DC/DC and DC/AC converters; 

• Innovative diodes for bypass functionalities; 

and 

• Gallium nitride MOSFETS that allow 

high switching frequencies with limited 

conduction and switching losses 

and therefore dissipate less power 

than traditional power solutions 

based (for example) on IGBT. 

What does NXP look to achieve by introducing 

such a solution 

By integrating chips and devices developed 

with high performance mixed signal 

design and process expertise, NXP aims 

to further improve the efficiency of solar 

power extraction and optimal management 

of power extracted from the panels 

considerably, shortening economic breakeven 

times, and boosting general acceptance 

as a common alternative for domestic 

and industrial applications. 

NXP wishes to contribute to the growth 

of non-conventional energy sources like 

solar PV by enabling the optimal solar PV 

based solutions and in the process expand 

its portfolio. 

How does NXP evaluate the Indian solar/ 

PV industry 

At the moment, the growth in PV depends 

heavily on incentives, politics and a 

“micro-lending” model of capital investment. 

There is little doubt, however, that 

PV will someday approach price parity 

with fossil fuel sources. From a system perspective, 

deploying huge numbers of solar 

installations changes the energy-delivery 

paradigm as it will need to take into consideration 

factors such as grid behavior, 

pick-load handling, and other real-world 

concerns. This means that PV is at, or close 

to, its tipping point, and new developments 

in semiconductor technologies have the 

potential to push it over the top. 

Overall, there is tremendous opportunity 

for the solar/PV industry in India, 

which is expected to grow multifold in the 

coming years. The semiconductor market 

for solar in India will face an exponential 

growth with the Jawaharlal Nehru National 

Solar Mission (JN-NSM) unveiling a target 

of 20 gigawatts by 2020. The basic building 

block of the solar photovoltaic (PV) energy 

generation, the solar cell itself, is a semiconductor 

(mostly silicon) device, but also, 

all key components in the power management 

like processors, logic devices, drivers 

and power ICs such as diodes, MoSFETs, 

MoVs, etc. 

Thank you, Ashok. 

—Pradeep Chakraborty 



Unraveling the smart grid for India 

Unraveling the smart grid 

for India 


Any electrical energy grid delivers 

energy from suppliers to consumers. 

The conventional grid is based on 

centralized generation in large power 

stations based on thermal, hydro and 

nuclear power, etc., followed by dispatch 

to consumers through a transmission 

and distribution network. 

However, what does the smart grid 

do What is the concept all about 

Speaking about the smart grid concept, 

Dr. Kaushik Saha, principal 

member, technical staff in the 

Advanced Systems Technologies group 

of STMicroelectronics, said that this process 

is controlled by central control stations, 

which match generation to demand. 

This process, though practiced and refined 

since the birth of electricity generation, is 

still prone to power loss and vulnerable to 

breakdowns and malicious damage due to 

the long path traversed by the power on its 

route from generator to consumer. 

“As the name indicates, smart grid is a 

grid made smart by using the latest technologies 

of computing and digital communication,” 

said Dr. Saha. “These new 

technologies enable huge flexibility as well 

as efficiency in all three key elements of 

grid, namely power generation, distribution 

and consumption. For example, power 

may be generated centrally in large power 

stations operated by utilities by traditional 

means and/or by small, distributed generators 

using green and renewable energy 

resources locally. 

“These ‘smart’ digital components communicate 

the status of generation and consumption 

to each other and collectively 

compute the path of least loss from the 

various generators to each consumer. This 

leads to enhanced efficiency in power utilization 

and a better quality of supply to 

the consumer. In addition, the digital communication 

elements can notify all parts of 

the grid rapidly in case of breakdown or 

damage in any portion, allowing the computers 

to collectively, or in groups, compute 

and activate alternative routes or strategies 

for the dispatch of power.” 

So, what is smart about smart grid 

According to him, the smartness in smart 

grid lies in its capability of self monitoring 

and adapting to the demands put on it 

in the most effective and efficient way and 

provides the flexibility of putting various 

kind of sources feeding into grid, e.g., solar, 

wind, bio gas, hydro and traditional power 


Unraveling the smart grid for India 

generators. As it can adapt to varied scenario 

in real time basis, it provides robustness 

in the grid by enabling alternate paths 

in the case of failure. 

As an analogy to the human body, the 

smart grid relies on small local generators 

and large power stations, which are monitored 

and activated by the digital communication 

network, a parallel of our nervous 

system. These energy generators, as well 

as consumption points, are controlled and 

coordinated by networks of computers, 

forming the brain of the grid. This combination 

of computation and communication 

is where the “smartness” lies. 

Saving power 

The key question: how can we save power 

through smart grid Dr. Saha said that 

smart grids are fully scalable in terms of 

their size and power distribution capability. 

One can think of micro, mini and mega 

smart grids covering small villages to mega 

cities. It can harness power from centralized 

big power sources to distributed small 

sources, particularly renewable energy 

sources, e.g., solar panels on house roof 

tops, biogas plants, windmills, etc. As use 

of these resources entails negligible fuel 

cost, valuable fossil fuel resources can be 

conserved with a huge benefit of avoiding 

green house gases. 

At any given time, the smart grid is 

able to compute, in real time, the path of 

least loss between generator and load for 

the generation and consumption pattern 

at that time. This results in the best 

usage of the generated power, which obviously 

results in savings in terms of energy 

resources. 

In addition, the loads drawing energy 

from a smart grid are smart too, incorporating 

digital technology to minimize 

internal losses. We may take the example of 

CFL/LED lights, which use digital technology 

and semiconductors to maximize the 

illumination produced and minimize the 

electrical power drawn. 

Smart grids are a key focus area all 

around the world today, including developed, 

developing and emerging economies. 

Whereas in the developed world, it 

can bring out efficiency and enable use of 

renewable energy sources, for the developing 

economies it can play an additional 

“leapfrog” step by bringing the power to 

energy starved areas including those where 

there is no electricity currently. This is possible 

as distributed energy sources are 

available almost everywhere, e.g., solar, and 

smart grids can easily tap into these. There 

are active programs all around the world, 

including the USA, the European Union, 

China and India. 

Indian scenario 

Let us look at the Indian scenario. It is 

important that we differentiate the implementation 

and application of smart grid 

for India vis-a-vis the global demand from 

this project, particularly keeping rural 

India in mind. 

Dr. Saha said that India is a fast emerging 

economy where the demand on electric 

power is increasing multifold. This can 

be visualized from the fact that currently 

India consumes around 3-4 percent of 

global electrical power consumption, while 

more than 17 percent of the world’s population 

lives here. 

“As India marches on its developing 

economy journey, the demand and consumption 

of electrical energy is going 

to dramatically change,” he pointed out. 

“Although 70 percent of the Indian population 

lives in villages, there are thousands of 

villages either with no electricity or inadequate 

electricity. This scenario makes it 

very attractive, if not mandatory, to capitalize 

on these technologies like smart grids 

to leapfrog to next level. 

“From our studies of Indian government 

policies, it seems that the focus 

would be on addition of generation capacity 

based on renewable resources like solar, 

wind, hydro-electric and biomass. The government 

is also formulating policies and 

standards for energy metering to eliminate 

pilferage and waste. On the load side, smart 

and energy-efficient loads like LED lights 

are being researched and standardized.” 

The distributed energy generation 

(DSG) technique is being closely studied 

and researched. In its ideal realization, it 

would result in every household consuming 

energy and also producing some from 

renewable resources, using solar panels or 

micro-wind turbines on rooftops, or microwater 

turbines in houses next to brooks in 

hilly regions. This is extremely important 

for the electrification of vast tracts of rural 

India, where local energy resources must 

be used, as it would be terribly expensive 

to route the national/regional grid to these 

remote locations. 

Further, in developed countries, the 

smart grid is not visualized to be only a 

smart electricity grid, but also a data network, 

in which the power wires are also 

used to carry digital data, such as for the 

Internet. This is a useful byproduct of the 

practices of automated electricity meter 

readings by means of power line communication 

methods. Such usage of smart 

grids will find viability in India in future 

once the wire quality and other aspects 

improve. 

ST’s opportunities 

ST has a long tradition of designing and 

manufacturing power semiconductors. 

Growth of this expertise strongly figures 

in ST’s vision. ST is a leader in power-line 

communication (PLM) and has an attractive 

portfolio of low-cost microcontrollers. 

The key question: how can we save 

power through smart grid 

ST’s expertise and portfolio can be of significant 

help to the Indian market players 

to learn from the experience that it has in 

other geographies where smart grid concept 

and deployment is more mature. 

ST India is working with relevant 

stakeholders and offering its expertise to 

research institutes, standardization bodies 

& policy makers to support them in their 

endeavor of charting the best course for 

the country in this field. 

The government of India has planned 

“Power for all by 2012.” In this context, the 

smart grid can be a very attractive technique 

by which full electrification of the 

country can be achieved. 

India is too diverse geographically and 

climatically for centralized electrification 

to be successful and sustainable. Smart 

grids, based on distributed local energy 

generation from renewable resources, 

coordinated and controlled by distributed 

controllers connected through power line 

communication, seem to be the best feasible 

technology. 



Solar thermal parabolic trough economics 

Special report 

Solar thermal parabolic 

trough economics 

Although Global Solar 

Technology is usually 

focused on solar PV, we 

are constantly looking for 

information that our readers 

will find useful on related technology 

and infrastructure issues. CSP Today has 

just published a comprehensive report 

entitled “CSP Parabolic Trough Report— 

Costs and Performance” (www.csptoday. 

com/costs). Given the increasing interest in 

this technology in the USA as well as the 

Middle East and North Africa, we thought 

we’d take a look at this fascinating and well 

researched report. 

The authors interviewed more than 45 

senior executives at companies involved 

in CSP, including developers, component 

manufacturers, EPCs and research labs. The 

team also collected data on costs from the 

interviewees and input information such 

water costs, insurance and labor necessary 

to calculate costs of CSP. The collated data 

was then run through a model called the 

Solar Advisory Model (SAM), developed 

by NREL, and the final results and report 

analysis were peer reviewed by leading scientists 

at CIEMAT, developers (Abengoa) 

and industry associations (Protermosolar). 

Where are parabolic troughs 

being installed 

There are 26 plants in total with 12 in the 

USA and 11 in Spain. Spain leads in capacity 

with 1200 MW plus 600 under construction, 

followed by the USA with 800 

MW and 1200 under construction—but 

the planned future capacity in the USA 

stands at an impressive 10.9 GW, larger 

than the next 10 nations combined. 

Why are they being installed 

The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is significantly 

lower than that of conventional 

solar PV: 0.15-0.24 €/kWh vs. 0.25-0.325 €/ 

kwh for solar PV. Also, thermal energy can 

be conveniently stored to help to balance 

supply and demand. 

12000 

10000 

8000 

6000 

4000 

2000 

0 

Portugal 

13 50 67 100 100 100 130 200 200 215 215.1 275 

France 

Iran 

Egypt 

Jordan 

Planned CSP capacity per country (in MW). 

What is LCOE and how was it 

calculated 

The LCOE was calculated according to the 

simplified IEA method (Ref. International 

Energy Agency (IEA), Guidelines for the 

economic analysis of renewable energy 

technology applications, (1991)) using euro 

as the currency. Equation 1 shows how the 

LCOE was calculated. 

How do these costs work 

out relative to other energy 

sources And what is the 

optimum plant size 

A major challenge to CSP plants is their 

inherently high capita cost. However, conventional 

power plants suffer from high 

fossil- fuel-dependent running costs, and 

thus the running costs of parabolic trough 

plants were found to be very competitive. 

The optimum plant size derived from the 

model used in this report was found to be 

around 150 MW. 

UAE 

India 

South Africa 

Tunisia 

Algeria 

China 

Equation 1: 

LCOE = 

Morocco 

Cost LifeCycle 

440 

Israel 

817 

Australia 

1338 

Spain 

10910.8 

How do parabolic troughs 

work 

The electricity is generated using by transferring 

the heat generated from solar collection 

to a heat transfer fluid and then to 

a steam heat exchanger, and then converting 

it into electricity using a conventional 

USA 

Energy LifeCycle 

= f cr !C Invest + C O&M + C Fuel 

EC Net 

Where f cr 

is the annuity factor calculated 

as per Equation 2: 

f cr 

= k d !(1+ k d )n 

(1+ k d 

) n "1 + k Insurance 

Where k d 

is the real debt interest rate, 

k insurance 

is the annual insurance rate, n is 

the depreciation period in years, C invest 

is 

the total investment of the plant, C O&M 

is 

the annual O&M cost, C fuel 

is the annual 

fuel cost and EC net 

is the annual net 

electricity. 


Solar thermal parabolic trough economics 

Performance Factors* CSP PTC Wind PV Biomass Natural Gas 

Energy Resource (GWh/km2/annum) 75-100 25-60 50-60

Case Study: The key to ‘printing’ CIGS: tight tolerance control 

Case study 

The key to ‘printing’ CIGS: 

tight tolerance control 

Challenge 

Increase precision and speed while 

reducing development time for 

demanding solar-cell production process. 

Solution 

• Bosch Rexroth SYNAX 200 shaftless 

motion control system 

• IndraDrive C Converters 

• MSK Synchronous Servo Motors 

With the Rexroth SYNAX 200 system, all the machines’ axes are electronically synchronized so 

when the line speed increases or decreases, the axes ramp up or down together to maintain 

precise web position. 

One of the brightest ideas in renewable 

energy is using solar-cell 

panels to generate electricity without 

burning hydrocarbon fuels. But compared 

to generating electricity from coal, 

the cost of producing electricity with solar 

cells is high. In recent years, one solar cell 

panel manufacturer has been able to reduce 

the cost of solar cell panels dramatically, 

thanks to innovative machinery developed 

by Northfield Automation Systems, using 

a Bosch Rexroth shaftless motion control 

system. 

“Manufacturing typical siliconwafer 

solar cells is expensive,” explains 

Darin Stotz, sales manager for Northfield 

Automation Systems. “That’s because a 

photovoltaic solar cell is built in layers, and 

the silicon semiconductor layer that turns 

light into electric current must be applied 

in a complex process known as vacuum 

deposition,” 

The solar cell panel manufacturer 

developed a new deposition method using 

technology from Northfield Automation 

Systems, which specializes in roll-to-roll 

thin material handling in the flexible circuit 

industry. They brought the expertise 

the solar-cell manufacturer critically 

needed to optimize their processes. 

“We implemented a Rexroth motion 

control solution on machinery that applies 

semiconductor material in an open-air 

environment, instead of inside vacuum 

chambers,” says Stotz. 

“Basically, this manufacturer applies 

copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) 

onto a web of thin foil in a process that 

resembles offset printing. Consequently, 

they can produce CIGS solar cells that are 

much less expensive than silicon wafer 

cells, because it eliminates the complexity 

Benefits 

• Precise web control for tight 

registration in thousandths of 

millimeters 

• Provides over one million counts 

per revolution for precise position 

monitoring 

• Eliminates mechanical-component 

limitations by using servo 

drives and electronic cams 

• Digital control platform enables 

Electronic Line Shafting as a 

virtual drive 

• Simple programming environment 

uses parameter library to 

eliminate coding and dramatically 

reduce development time 

• Modular system simplifies shipping 

and allows for flexibility in 

line configuration 

of vacuum deposition.” 

The process is similar to printing the 

Sunday newspaper’s comics, in which 

layers of ink are aligned on a web of paper 

so the colors do not blur. But this process 

requires far tighter registration, as tight as 

one-thousandths of a millimeter. This level 

of precision in web handling presented 

Northfield with several challenges. 

“This customer feeds rolls of foil 

through rolls in large presses similar to 

those used in rotogravure printing,” says 

Stotz. “Their challenge was to find a drive 

and motion control system that could syn- 


Case Study: The key to ‘printing’ CIGS: tight tolerance control 

By applying copper indium gallium (di) 

selenide onto a web of thin foil in a 

process that resembles offset printing, the 

manufacturer can produce CIGS solar cells 

that are much less expensive than silicon 

wafer cells. 

chronize multiple axes of the rolls in one 

long production line. As the web moves 

>100 feet down the line through different 

processes, the axes have to align the foil 

material in proper position for the next 

step. From step to step, we need tight tolerance 

control so what happens in one operation 

lines up with the next. If the layers 

do not match up, then the solar cell must 

be scrapped, resulting in wasted materials. 

Consequently, the machinery has to start 

with tight tolerances, then maintain it at 

the next step so we don’t have to make a lot 

of adjustments to the web’s tension, speed 

and position.” 

In conventional printing, rotary presses 

often use mechanical shafts and gears, 

but they do not come close to providing 

the accuracy required in this application. 

Neither can stepper motors, a solution that 

Northfield Automation Systems has traditionally 

employed in their web-handling 

machinery. 

Motion Tech Automation, a local distributor 

of Bosch Rexroth motion control 

products, assisted Northfield in finding a 

superior alternative—the Rexroth SYNAX 

200 shaftless drive system. With the 

SYNAX 200 system, all the machines’ axes 

are electronically synchronized so when 

the line speed increases or decreases, the 

axes ramp up or down together to maintain 

precise web position. 

To maintain accuracy in thousandths 

The modularity inherent in the SYNAX 200 system made it possible to develop modular machine 

designs, which simplifies shipping and provides flexibility in configuring the line to meet 

various requirements of the solar-cell production process. 

of millimeters along a 100-foot line, 

Northfield specified Bosch Rexroth’s 

SYNAX 200 control platform along with 

IndraDrive intelligent servo drives using 

SERCOS III industrial Ethernet communication. 

Designed for the web-handling industry, 

Rexroth’s SYNAX 200 is a control and 

drive solution that provides tight control of 

web positions by making minute changes 

in speed to maintain registration of the 

layers. Instead of mechanical cam shafts 

and gears, tightly synchronized digital 

servo drives and dynamic servo motors 

run off a standardized control platform to 

create virtual drives, an approach known 

as Electronic Line Shafting. The primary 

shaft is a virtual master axis. A programmable 

electronic gearbox ratio simulates 

the mechanical gearbox between the 

master axis and the drive. The master axis 

maintains a fixed relationship between its 

position and other virtual slave axes to 

achieve positioning accuracy that cannot 

be obtained with mechanical gearboxes— 

or even stepper motors. 

Web handling can be done with stepper 

motors, however the positioning accuracy 

of stepper motors is between 500 and 

50,000 steps per revolution. That may seem 

high, but a servomotor using sine/cosine 

encoders for position monitoring provides 

over one million counts per revolution. 

That improves resolution and accuracy by 

several orders of magnitude. 

The customer was not previously 

familiar with Electronic Line Shafting. 

According to Stotz, “They knew what servomotors 

were capable of, but we showed 

them how one single controller could run 

all those axes and how the architecture 

could achieve the precision they wanted.” 

For this application, the SYNAX platform 

included a machine vision camera 

that focuses on registration marks on 

the web. Position inputs are translated by 

a PLC that sends instructions to a rack 

mounted PPC multiaxis controller. The 

controller communicates with the Rexroth 

Indradrive C Converters powering Rexroth 

MSK synchronous servo motors, which 

make the appropriate position and speed 

adjustments as required. Each drive functions 

as a stand-alone device with its own 

power supply. Data is transmitted between 

the motion controller and drives in real 

time over SERCOS III industrial Ethernet 

that provides noise immunity. 

The servomotors adjust speed to vary 

web tension—and use speed to vary print 

location. Speed and tension can be adjusted 

by 1 percent increments as needed. 

With the SYNAX 200, achieving pre- 

Continued on page 40 



Thermal oxidation in crystalline solar cell metallization 

Thermal oxidation in 

crystalline solar cell 

metallization 

Dr. Hans Bell and Manuel Schwarzenbolz, Rehm Thermal Systems 

The article describes the use of thermal 

oxidation for reducing emissions 

from solar dryers and firing systems 

in the metallization of crystalline 

solar cells. With an oxidizer, emissions 

remain well below the statutory 

limitations for emissions of pollutants 

(e.g. TA-Luft, Germany’s Clean Air 

Act). The collection efficiency reaches 

99.5%, making a significant contribution 

to lower maintenance costs for 

solar dryers and firing systems. 

The composition of pastes for the 

metallization of solar cells can be 

highly varied. This does not concern 

the actual metal content (silver or 

aluminum powder) but the other additives 

that are key to the printing properties 

of the paste and the baking and sintering 

characteristics. The proportion of these 

substances can be up to about 25 percent 

by weight, of which the largest share is the 

organic medium in which the solids (metal 

powders, metal oxides, inorganic binders 

such as glass frit) are dispersed. 

Typically, after being printed onto the 

solar cell the paste is dried at temperatures 

from 200 to 350 °C and, in a subsequent 

firing process, baked into the solar cell at 

temperatures of 800 to 1000 °C. During 

drying and firing of the pastes, fumes and 

smoke are generated. These must be safely 

extracted from the process chamber to 

avoid contamination of the system as far 

as possible. The fumes/smoke arise from 

the volatile components of the organic 

medium, which can consist of various 

organic liquids that may also contain thickeners 

and stabilizers. Examples of organic 

liquids are alcohols (Texanol) or alcohol 

esters (acetic acid and propionate), terpene 

(pine oil, terpineol), solutions of resins 

(polymethacrylate), solutions of ethyl cellulose 

in a solvent (e.g. terpineol) and the 

monobutyl-ether of ethylene glycol monoacetate. 

A preferred organic medium is 

ethyl cellulose in terpineol in combination 

with a thickening agent mixed with butyl 

carbitol acetate. In a study, Vogg1 determined 

the weight losses using different 

metallization pastes. Figure 1, for example, 

shows the weight losses of an Al backside 

metallization, which here reach >24 percent. 

The operator of a drying plant does 

not usually know the exact composition of 

the metallization paste used and its volatile 

constituents. Therefore, a filter-/col- 

Keywords: Thermal Oxidation, 

Reducing Emissions, Solar Dryers, 

Firing Furnaces, Crystalline Solar 

Cells 

Figure 1. Weight losses in an Al backside metallization, after Vogg 1 . 



lection unit for the vapors/fumes cannot 

be custom-made, but must be designed 

for a broad range of deposition of various 

ingredients. At the same time, it can 

be expected that after passing through the 

filter-/collection unit the emissions will fall 

substantially below the limitations set by 

legislation, such as the Clean Air Act (see 

Reference 3). 

Very often, so-called condensate separators 

are used in the manufacturing. On 

the one hand, the collection efficiency is 

limited, and on the other hand, the mandatory 

disposal of the accumulated condensates 

is expensive. 

For these reasons Rehm has taken the 

known method of thermal oxidation for 

solar systems and implemented it in an 

innovative way. The thermal oxidation is 

a process that takes the volatile organic 

components and hydrocarbons from the 

metallization paste and binds them with 

oxygen, essentially breaking them down 

into water vapor and carbon dioxide. The 

goal is to burn the long-chain molecules 

in the vapors/fumes and convert them 

into easily volatile substances that condense 

only with difficulty. These can then 

be easily removed from the system, which 

thus drastically reduces the potential for 

condensation within the drying system. 

The thermal oxidation is initiated by the 

heat of the exhaust gas at a temperature 

>750 °C. At the high temperatures the 

molecules break down and bind to the 

available oxygen in the system. To achieve 

these high temperatures, Rehm deploys 

strictly electrical heating systems; the use 

of open flames is deliberately avoided. The 

risk of NOx gases forming is thus ruled 

out as far as possible. Measurements of 

ILK Dresden2, as shown in Figure 2, document 

a collection efficiency for the pollutant 

toluene that reaches 99.5 % in the 

high temperatures in the oxidizer. With 

the thermal oxidation, emissions are well 

below the legal limits set for emissions (e.g. 

Germany’s Clean Air Act). Good separation 

behavior was achieved not only for 

volatile organic hydrocarbons (VOCs), 

but also for the particulate distribution. 

A clean gas value of particles below 0.2 

microns was gravimetrically determined 

by ILK (the Institute of Air Handling and 

Refrigeration in Dresden)2 to be about 2 

mg/m³. The oxidizer also copes well with 

different concentrations, as other measurements 

by ILK document4. At five times the 

concentration of the model pollutant toluene, 

the collection efficiency remained > 

99.5 percent. 

The oxidizer contributes significantly 

Figure 2. The collection efficiency of the Rehm Oxidizer (as total C/propane equivalent measured 

with the FID), according to measurements of ILK Dresden, 2010 2 . 

Figure 3. Time course of the collection efficiency as a function of the concentration of pollutants 

(using the model pollutant toluene, shown at average and high concentrations), according 

to measurements of ILK Dresden 2011 4 . Red line= raw gas. Blue line=clean gas. 

to minimizing the condensation potential, 

thus significantly minimizing the cost 

of maintenance for dryer systems. As no 

more condensate can be formed on the 

clean gas side, the main extraction system 

of the fabrication plant remains visibly 

cleaner. A highly positive side effect is the 

markedly lower odor of solar dryers with 

an integrated oxidizer. Figure 4 shows a 

functional diagram of the thermal reactor 

(oxidizer), which is horizontally integrated 

into the Rehm-systems—here, into 

a dryer. The horizontal integration allows a 

compact construction of the entire drying 

system, and through its lengthy gas routing 

it secures the necessary gas contact time, 

resulting in an excellent collection efficiency 

at high temperatures. 

With the help of a fan, the hot raw contaminated 

gas is drawn off from the process 

chamber of the solar dryer and passed 

directly through the electrical heating unit 

of the oxidizer to be warmed to the high 

temperature of 750 °C that is required. The 

flow is set (~ 170 m³/h actual flow) so that 

a sufficiently long residence time of the 

raw gas of >1 s at this high temperature 

is guaranteed. The oxidizer is optimized 




Case study 

Continued from page 37 

Figure 4. Schematic diagram of the Rehm oxidizer. 

for energy use, resulting in an operational 

power draw of

Lamination—no problem for Bürkle! 

Lamination—no problem 

for Bürkle! 

It is always fascinating to see technology 

crossovers. It’s surprising how often 

another industry has solved the problems 

facing your industry. Here we have a 

classic case of a company founded on wood 

lamination applying its technology to solar 

modules 

Bürkle North America, Inc., is a subsidiary 

company of Robert Bürkle GmbH, 

having its headquarters in Garden Grove, 

California. Bürkle is focused on two core 

technologies, coating and lamination, and 

serves the woodworking industry, the 

printed wiring board fabrication industry, 

the photovoltaic solar panel industry, and 

the plastic card fabrication industry. Bürkle 

is the pioneer in supplying multi-opening 

lamination lines into the PV Industry. More 

than 35 multi-opening lamination lines for 

the lamination of solar modules have been 

supplied since the market entry in 2008. 

Bürkle is a 90-year-old company with three 

manufacturing facilities in Germany and 

sales and service offices around the world. 

The group has a staff of 720 employees. 

I talked to Dick Crowe, president and 

CEO of Bürkle North America, (who had 

interviewed me at APEX). I was fascinated 

by the way this company had carved out a 

really interesting niche in the market. 

How did this business evolve 

Starting with wood lamination 91 years 

ago, we devised large-area, high-precision 

laminating processes that were later used 

in circuit board manufacture, credit card 

lamination and solar modules. 

What is your technical emphasis 

Precise materials handling and thermal 

uniformity across the heated platen using 

oil heating. 

Single-daylight 

easy-Lam® 

The multi-daylight Ypsator® 

How did you get into solar PV 

About 10 years ago we looked at the 

market, and at that time it was too small 

and not well enough developed for us. We 

revisited with an extensive market survey 

and decided that the time was now right to 

introduce lamination products that would 

yield statistically significant yield and 

throughput improvements. 

How do you achieve these improvements 

It’s critical to manage pressure and heat 

uniformity over time. Our vacuum presses 

using membranes give uniform pressure 

without cracking the solar modules. 

What types of presses do you sell 

“Single Daylight” (easy-Lam®) and “Multi 

Daylight” (Ypsator®). The single units have 

a cycle time of 17-20 minutes. Our multi 

units with four to 10 openings can increase 

throughput in proportion with the number 

of parallel stacked platens—up to 240 

panels per hour depending on size. 

How can you reduce cycle time 

We have a split cycle process that can further 

increase throughput by reducing the 

cycle time to 8-10 minutes, a reduction 

of 50%. The first part of the cycle applies 

vacuum, heat and pressure to 

start polymerization, 

and the polymerization 

is finished under 

pressure and heat with 

no vacuum. This can 

give an output of up to 

144 panels per hour. 

You mentioned materials handling as a 

strength 

We manage this within the laminators to 

minimize productive time. One load is 

ready to move as soon as the earlier load 

exits the process. 

What’s next for Bürkle 

We are driven by the industry roadmaps 

and the development of local module 

manufacturing across the world. Silicon 

based systems will dominate (although we 

see significant developments from our thin 

film customers, especially CIGS), and so 

we feel we are well positioned for the next 

five years’ growth. We have shipped over 

150 machines, and demand is strong. We 

have worldwide manufacturing and distribution, 

with, for example, six service engineers 

in North America. 

We have other product lines we will 

bring on as needed, for example our easy- 

Coater® novel glass coating system using 

a combination of grooved and solid pressure 

rollers to give an extremely uniform 

coating on glass across the entire width, 

something which is not possible to achieve 

with other technologies, such as spray. This 

technology is adaptable to a wide range of 

glass coatings for imaging, adhesion, optical 

modification, etc., for both thin film and 

crystalline silicon modules. 

Bürkle shows nicely how a best-of breed 

supplier can develop a strong business in 

the growing solar PV market by bringing 

in the right products at the right time. 

—Alan Rae 


Summer 2011 

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Industry Events Calendar News 

Title 

Events Calendar 

Industry News 

5-9 September 

26th EU PVSEC 

Hamburg, Germany 

photovoltaic-conference.com 

26-28 October 

Solar Power UK 

Conference and Exhibition 2011 

Birmingham, United Kingdom 

solarpowerukevents.org 

1-4 November 

APVIA (2011) PVAP Expo 

Singapore 

pvap.sg 

2-4 November 

International Congress on Renewable 

Energy (ICORE) 

Aasam, India 

icoreindia.org 

5-9 September 

26th EU PVSEC 

Hamburg, Germany 

photovoltaic-conference.com 

8-9 November 

2nd Photovoltaic System & Grid 

Integration Forum 2011 

Shanghai, China 

pvgridintegration.com 

8-9 November 

2011 PV System & Grid Integration Forum 

Beijing, China 

pvgridintegration.com 

16-18 November 

2011 Shanghai International Solar 

Photovoltaic and Thermal Expo 

Shanghai, China 

nerexpo.com 


AZISCN2011_Global Solar_170x248_EN:Layout 1 29.04.11 10:52 Seite 1 

December 7–9, 2011 

China’s International Exhibition 

and Conference for the Solar Industry 

China National Convention Center (CNCC) 

Beijing, China 

©CNCC 

250 Exhibitors 

16,500 sqm Exhibition Space 

7,500+ Visitors 

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For Solar And PV Manufacturing Professionals - BluOcean.AdMedia

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