The company uses copper indium gallium diselenide to produce CIGS cells, which achieve up to 19.9% efficiency in laboratory samples,[2] and production cells of about 10.5 to 11 percent average efficiency.[3] This type of solar cell is ideal for portable power and is 1.5 to 2X greater in performance than comparable thin filmflexible solar materials.[4]
Mass production
Global Solar Energy opened in 1996, and in 2008 finished another phase of development as it expanded its CIGS production to a new 40 MW facility in Tucson, Arizona and a second 35 MW facility in Berlin, Germany.[5]
The company expects to produce 20 megawatts of the films at the plant in 2008 before ramping up to 40 megawatts of capacity in 2009 and 140 megawatts by 2010.[6] This makes Global Solar the largest full-scale manufacturer of CIGS thin-film photovoltaics.
Installations
Global Solar Energy operates the largest CIGS solar electric array in the world, a 750 kW system located at the company's manufacturing facility in Tucson.[7] Part of the energy harnessed by this array is being purchased by the factory itself.[8]
With the advances in conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si) technology in recent years, and the falling cost of the polysilicon feedstock, that followed after a period of severe global shortage, pressure increased on manufacturers of commercial thin-film technologies, including amorphous thin-film silicon (a-Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe), and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), leading to the bankruptcy of several companies.[9] Some current competitors are:
Siva Power, a US Department of Energy awarded company that is operating in San Jose, CA.
GSHK Solar has noted that it can produce CIGS cells with a 12.5 percent and an average efficiency of 10 percent in full production efficiency.[10]
IBM has reported 12% efficiency for its CIS solar cells.[11]
^I. Repins, M. A. Contreras, B. Egaas, C. DeHart, J. Scharf, C. L. Perkins, B. To, and R. Noufi., 19.9%-efficient ZnO/CdS/CuInGaSe$_2$ solar cell with 81.2% fill factor.
