All About Solar | Green Energy News

July 16, 2006 – Vol.11 No.17

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news.

Squeezing the most out silicon is a key to the long term goal of bringing down the cost of silicon solar.

Though the raw material such as quartz or silica sand to make silicon solar cells is literally dirt cheap, it’s the process of refining and recrystalizing silicon (and the energy needed to do that) that makes it an expensive material.

To complicate matters - to increase the cost of silicon solar - the production process of sawing high purity silicon ingots into silicon wafers is wasteful. The kerf (the width of the saw cut) is about the same thickness as a silicon wafer itself. (For every silicon wafer that is successfully cut an equal amount of silicon ends up as silicon waste.

Evergreen Solar removes itself from slicing silicon wafers from ingots by using a different method to make silicon crystals . It uses a continuous crystallizing process it calls String Ribbon to grow long ribbons of silicon crystals that can be cut up to make cells and modules.

Now, BP Solar is considering its own version of string ribbon and is funding research to develop that technology. The company has announced it will give EUR 600,000 ($760,000) to the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL) over three years to develop a silicon ribbon growing process known as EZ-Ribbon. BP’s funding is part of its Solar Future Technology initiative. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology is also supporting the project.

Pursuing string silicon ribbon is not all that BP is doing to squeeze the most out of silicon.

The company is also implementing a new silicon crystal growth process that increases cell efficiency for traditional multicrystalline solar cells. The proprietary technique known as Mono2 should yield cells, and thus modules, that produce 5 - 8 percent more power for the same surface area as solar products now produced by the company. The products using the new process should roll off of BP Solar’s Frederick, Maryland assembly line in 2007. The development of Mono2 was funded in part through a manufacturing contract with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. of the US Department of Energy.

Visit BP Solar at http://www.bpsolar.com/ , and FCUL at http://www.fc.ul.pt/

Evergreen Solar, once again, has secured a long term sales contract for solar products. To bring its recent bookings up to $600 million, Evergreen has signed an agreement to supply SunEdison of Baltimore, Maryland with $200 million in solar products over the next five years.

SunEdison finances and builds solar photovoltaic power plants.

Evergreen, utilizing it String Ribbon proprietary silicon solar technology, makes solar products in Massachusetts and Germany. It’s EverQ Thalheim, Germany plant will expand to be able to ship 300 megawatts per year of solar products by 2010.

Visit Evergreen at http://www.evergreensolar.com/ and SunEdison at http://www.sunedison.com/