Nanosolar Achieves 1GW CIGS Deposition Throughput
By Martin Roscheisen, CEO - June 18, 2008As we are busy ramping our operation, we want to recognize achieving a major milestone in solar technology: The solar industry’s first 1 gigawatt (GW) production tool. Here it is:
[Also: Higher-resolution download of video (6.5MB).]
Most production tools in the solar industry tend to have a 10-30 megawatt (MW) annual production capacity. How is it possible to have a single tool with gigawatt throughput?
This feat is fundamentally enabled through the proprietary nanoparticle ink we have spent so many years developing. It allows us to deliver efficient solar cells (presently up to more than 14%) that are simply printed.
Printing is a simple, fast, and robust coating process that eliminates the need for expensive high-vacuum chambers and the kinds of high-vacuum based deposition techniques sometimes used in industries where there are a lot more $/sqm available for competitive manufacturing cost.
Our 1GW CIGS coater cost $1.65 million. At the 100 feet-per-minute speed shown in the video, that’s an astonishing two orders of magnitude more capital efficient than a high-vacuum process: a twenty times slower high-vacuum tool would have cost about ten times as much.
Plus if we cared to run it even faster, we could. (The same coating technique works in principle for speeds up to 2000 feet-per-minute too. In fact, it turns out the faster we run, the better the coating!)
