1366 Technologies, a photovoltaics (PV) equipment company born out of MIT labs, has completed its National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) PV Technology Pre-Incubator program six months ahead of schedule. 1366 Technologies signed the contract with NREL in October of 2009 to develop its Direct Wafer technology, which produces compatible silicon wafers directly from the silicon melt without casting or sawing.
The PV Technology Pre-Incubator was the first of two government awards
received by 1366 Technologies to develop its Direct Wafer technology–which the company says can cut wafer production costs by up to 70%. The Direct
Wafer was also the only PV technology selected out of 3,700 applications
for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy
(ARPA-E) program.
By completing the PV Technology Pre-Incubator early,
1366 Technologies was able to start its ARPA-E program in March,
positioning the company to start building a factory in 2011.
"Speed to market is critical for new technologies, and 1366 is on the fast track to commercialize its disruptive Direct Wafer process," said Martha Symko-Davies, Senior Program Manager at NREL.
"The NREL program was important and allowed us to make key hires and accelerate technical development," said Ely Sachs, CTO of 1366 Technologies.
1366 Technologies is also commercializing its Self-Aligned Cell (SAC) architecture. The company has secured two lead development customers and is now selling the SAC equipment and process, which features cell texturing and fine-line metallization to deliver higher efficiencies–up to 18% the company says.
The PV Technology Pre-Incubator project focuses on accelerating the advancement of demonstrated PV module-related technologies to the prototype stage of technology development. The technologies are expected to be innovative, potentially disruptive, and capable of commercialization by 2015.
1366 Technologies is headquartered in Lexington, MA. The company’s technology was developed by researchers and engineers at MIT.
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