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XsunX thin film solar advances

15 Mar 10 | Solar Electric, Technology

Thin Film Photovoltaics (TFPV) have the potential to dominate the PV market in years to come. TFPV is less expensive to manufacture due to reduced use or elimination of the raw material Silicon, the key ingredient in all wafer PV technology.  TFPV is also the key to building integrated PV (BIPV), peel and stick laminates and other low profile PV solutions.  Many commercial building architects and owners prefer low profile PV systems to the mounting of large PV arrays, which increase weight and wind loading and lower aesthetic appeal for some people.

The downside to TFPV is lower efficiencies, on the order of 7-9% for most commercially available modules.  This adds to the array area and adds expense and labor to a PV installation.

XsunX, Inc., manufacture of Thin Film Photovoltaics is working on boosting TFPV efficiencies to 19-20%.  Several development laboratories have seen efficiencies of 19% or greater in lab testing.  The difference between lab tests of specific PV modules made in tightly controlled conditions and mass manufactured modules is the purity of the substrate materials.  In conventional TFPV manufacturing, substrate is manufactured in a continuous roll process, making large quantities of low grade material.  These rolls are then cut up into 125 x 125 mm cells and installed in modules.  What XsunX is proposing is using a proven automated manufacturing process very similar to that used in the making of computer hard drives.  Smaller 125 x 125 mm solar cells will be manufactured individually instead of in large rolls.  Other parts of the process include a proprietary co-evaporation chamber which will speed the process and minimize contamination.

According to CEO Tom Djokovich, the cross industry system has the capability of making 600 million CIGS units per year, which equals 3 GW of solar cells.  With a 12% efficiency, the cost per watt will be about $0.80 wholesale.   Currently XsunX is developing the manufacturing machinery for this process as well as building their own thin film manufacturing plant.  They expect the first small production run in the end of 2010.

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15 Mar 10 | Solar Electric, Technology
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Reader's Comments

  1. Eric | March 15th, 2010 at 2:23 pm

    Man! I hope they move soon. I’ve been sitting on 1300 shares of XSUNX since early 2008. I’m skeptical of their performance, but because they are pacific northwesterners and with the rise of Solyndra’s CIGS, i’m hoping for the best.



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