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First Solar’s TetraSun silicon solar photovoltaic production line is officially in service.
First Solar Now Officially in the Silicon PV Production Business
First Solar takes on SunPower, Panasonic, Sanyo, Suniva and SolarCity in high-efficiency PV solar Technology
First Solar’s TetraSun silicon solar photovoltaic production line is officially in service. The line, located at First Solar’s Kulim, Malaysia manufacturing facility, has capacity for 100 megawatts of annual module production. This was initially reported in Daily Express, the "independent national newspaper of East Malaysia."
First Solar's spokesperson confirmed the news and noted that "a portion of the initial TetraSun production is allotted to customers in Japan; our global business development team will look for additional opportunities where appropriate," adding, "We are starting with limited production on this initial line, and will ramp up as demand arises."
First Solar is a long-time thin-film solar manufacturer and vertically integrated solar project developer. The company moved into silicon with its acquisition of high-efficiency solar startup TetraSun in April 2013. This is the cadmium telluride vendor's first foray into silicon, although it has explored the CIGS material system. TetraSun was a fourteen-employee startup with $12 million from investors and little more than a pilot cell manufacturing plant when acquired by First Solar. Now, with the financial backing and manufacturing know-how of First Solar, the technology has made the move to large-scale commercialization.
The new high-efficiency product might enable First Solar to add rooftop and distributed generation sales to the more lumpy project revenue of its core utility-scale solar business.
First Solar has released a few details about TetraSun's technology in the past. Here's our most recent list.
• The cell design potentially allows efficiencies over 21 percent
• Cells are built using 156 mm n-type wafers, which have higher efficiencies than p-type monocrystalline cells because of their higher minority carrier lifetime
• The 156 mm wafers provide more active cell area per module and increased power output compared to 125 mm wafers
• The metallization process utilizes less than 50 µ narrow copper electrodes, which yield better conductivity and less resistive losses than industry-standard, screen-printed silver fingers. Copper-plated metallization induces minimal stress on wafers, improving mechanical yield and reliability, according to the firm. (There are downsides to copper as well, however.)
• Lower temperature coefficient (-0.3%/ °C) results in better energy production compared to traditional crystalline technologies (typical -0.45%/°C).
• No light-induced degradation and no potential-induced degradation
According to GTM Research's Senior Solar Analyst Shyam Mehta, "The use of copper metallization really does give TetraSun a shot at being a truly low-cost, high-efficiency technology." However, he cautioned, that, until now at least, there have been multiple barriers associated with commercializing copper as a metallization solution.
In an earlier presentation, First Solar CTO Raffi Garabedian said, "We're motivated to go out for a very high-efficiency cell technology -- but not at all costs," adding, "We intentionally didn't acquire a company that has an advanced interdigitated back contact cell that can get [First Solar] up to 23 percent. Why? Because I don't think I can afford all those process steps it takes to make that cell and still sell into these markets. We took a very pragmatic approach to find the sweet spot between efficiency upside and the underlying cost structure of cell manufacture. We think we have that with this product."