Turns out the 7.5-megawatt (MW) supply agreement between California thin-film solar company MiaSole and project developer juwi Solar GmbH was just the tip of the iceberg.
The companies also signed a long-term agreement for 50 MW of shipments in 2011 and a total of 600 MW in the following years.
MiaSole is one of a handful of US thin-film solar startups attempting to gain market traction for Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) solar panels. These startups face stiff competition from crystalline silicon solar cell producers who are reducing production costs in China. Also, they must overcome thin-film giant FirstSolar (Nasdaq: FSLR), which produces cadmium telluride panels that have a lower conversion efficiency, but a matching lower cost.
The supply agreement with juwi is positive step for MiaSole. The company told Green Tech Media that it intends to shipp 22 MW worth of panels this year and boost the conversion efficiency of its product from 10.5% to 13%.
The MiaSole module incorporates a glass-glass design, suitable for
rigorous snow-load requirements and design features such as a low open
circuit voltage and interconnecting cables that reduce owner’s balance
of systems cost versus comparable thin film modules.
Juwi plans to use the panels in ground mounted and rooftop projects throughout Germany in the second half of 2010. This order follows 1MW of CIGS modules delivered to juwi in 2Q10 for projects in Germany and San Antonio, Texas.
Lars Falck, Managing Director of juwi Solar GmbH, said he expects the relationship with MiaSole to grow.
MiaSole currently operates two manufacturing facilities with construction beginning on the third factory in 2010.
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Researchers at Germany’s Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) produced a CIGS solar cell with a confirmed conversion efficiency of 20.3%–breaking the previous record also held by ZSW.
This cuts to only 0.1% the advance of the multi-crystalline solar cells still dominating the global market.
The size of the record-setting cell is extremely small–only 0.5 square centimeters with a thickness of four-thousandths of a millimeter. Nonetheless, the researchers say advancements in the technology should significantly improve the cost-effectiveness of commercially available CIGS panels over the medium term.
Within the next few years, the efficiency of the relatively low-priced CIGS thin-film solar modules is expected to rise from about 11% to about 15%.
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