Solar energy is moving into a new phase in Taiwan with the start-up of the country’s first, large-scale thin film solar cell manufacturing plant. BOC Lien Hwa, Taiwan’s leading electronic gases supplier, has been selected to supply the manufacturing plant, owned by NexPower, with a range of high purity gases used in the manufacturing process.
BOCLH is a joint venture between The Linde Group (LIN.DE), a leading global gases and engineering group, and Taiwan’s Lien Hwa Corporation (1229.TW), offering gases, gas supply systems and services for numerous applications in semiconductor, solar cell, and TFT-LCD production.
The NexPower plant is expected to begin operations by the second quarter of 2008. It will use a new thin-film technology that enables the production of large-scale solar panels that have an area more than five times of those currently produced. This larger area helps produce more power, making the power generation costs more competitive with that of conventional grid-supplied electricity.
Under a long-term agreement, BOCLH will provide NexPower with turnkey installation of the special gases supply systems and ongoing delivery of the gases essential to making thin film solar cells. These gases include large volumes of silane and hydrogen gas, used to deposit silicon light absorber layers on large sheets of glass, and cleaning gases used to remove silicon deposits from the process chambers.
NexPower was formed in 2005 by the UMC Group, one of the world’s leading semiconductor foundry companies, to meet the growing demand for clean energy sources.
About The Linde Group
The Linde Group is a world leading gases and engineering company with around 50,000 employees working in about 100 countries and achieved sales in the 2007 financial year of EUR 12.3 billion. The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards earnings-based growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services.
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