Thin Film PV

Solexel raises $36m in difficult funding market Mentioned: Solexel, Solar Frontier, Solyndra, Intermolecular, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, International Solar Electric Technology

Thin Film Intelligence Brief 5 – 17 July 2012

Solexel raises $36m


The Silicon Valley thin silicon company Solexel has raised $36m in its third round of venture capital, the company disclosed in a filing with the SEC. Sunpower is among the recent investors. Dr. Mehrdad Moslehi, founder and CTO of Solexel is the holder of over 220 patents, and has been recognized as a Prolific Inventor by both the USPTO and Texas Instruments.

Solexel’s modules use relatively inexpensive silicon gas, rather than more costly bulk silicon wafers to make the active cell area in its thin film solar modules.

Founded in 2005, Solexel is developing crystalline silicon based photovoltaic modules based on a technology that eliminates any dependency on the silicon feedstock, ingot, and wafer supply chain, in addition to significantly reducing silicon consumption to one tenth the the current industry standard for silicon thin film according to the company.


Last August, Solexel signed an MOU with Senai Hi-Tech Park for the construction of a solar photovoltaic cell manufacturing facility in Malaysia with an initial annual production capacity of 200 MW. The construction of the plant will take an initial investment of $27m. The company hopes to ship 20% efficient silicon thin film at 42 cents a watt in 2014.

Solar Frontier bags Japanese convenience stores deal

Spurred by Japan’s lucrative recently announced solar feed-in tariff rates, Solar Frontier will be supplying its CIS thin-film modules to a convenience store chain in Japan.

Each store in the 2,000-store chain of Lawson convenience stores will be powered by a 12kW installation using Solar Frontier’s 150W CIS thin film modules. Lawson plans to have solar panels installed on 1,000 of its stores this fiscal year and 1,000 next year. The chain has also ordered Solar Frontier’s Frontier Monitor technology for the first 1,000 stores.

“Our proposition to Lawson was consistent with what we propose to all our customers,” said Shigeaki Kameda, president of Solar Frontier. “The new feed-in tariff in Japan, like all feed in tariffs, is based on the amount of kilowatt hours you return to the grid, and Solar Frontier’s CIS technology is about delivering more kilowatt hours. Our modules are developed to deliver higher energy output in the real world plus the highest standard of quality from Solar Frontier’s Kunitomi factory in Miyazaki, Japan.”

Solyndra leaves legislative legacy with new layers of reviews


House Republicans have introduced draft legislation that would forbid the DOE from issuing any loan guarantee for any application received after Dec. 31, 2011, under the “No More Solyndras Act.” 

The thirty six pending applications that were submitted before the expiration of the Section 1705 loan guarantee program in September 2011, that were invited to reapply to the 1703 loan guarantee program, would now have to undergo additional layers of new bureaucracy. 

In order to receive a loan guarantee, these solar companies would have to be reviewed by the Treasury Secretary who would issue a written recommendation to the Secretary of Energy within 30 days. If there was any disagreement by either of the two, then each application would also be evaluated by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

If a guarantee were made, the DOE would be required to report back to Congress on the recipient, the terms of the guarantee, and the technology and project for which the guarantee would be applied and consult with the Treasury on any restructuring of the guarantee’s terms or conditions.

Although Section 1705 of the program - the provision under which Solyndra was backed - expired on September 30th 2011, the DOE was funded to issue $34bn in new loan guarantees under Section 1703, which authorizes the DOE to support a wide range of innovative carbon reduction technologies from fossil and nuclear to renewables and energy efficiency.

The House budgeted $34bn under Section 1703 for new loan guarantees in April 2011. This budget restricted solar to $1.5bn to be shared with all other renewable and energy efficiency technologies, and expanded to $30.5bn the pot reserved for fossil and nuclear technologies. Another $2bn is reportedly non specified. 

GE goes back to drawing board 

General Electric has temporarily suspended the commercial roll-out of its CdTe thin-film modules in a pilot manufacturing facility location announced in October of 2011. It would have begun commercial shipments in 2013 of 400 MW annually. The price drop in solar panels together with overcapacity of solar modules were the reasons cited.

The step backwards is not an exit, however, but a reordering of priorities in view of the current market for CdTe at current efficiencies and costs. Instead of manufacturing using current technology, GE has gone back to the lab to boost cell efficiencies and lower production costs with the goal to achieve conversion rates above 15% of the CdTe thin film developed by PrimeStar, a startup that GE bought last year.



It also spent $3.2bn to buy the power conversion engineering company Converteam last year, which as GE’s new division, Power Conversion, will manufacture solar inverters. Under the revised thin film production plan, GE now projects likely manufacturing to begin in 2014. 

Intermolecular to help grow Saudi solar with CIGS expertise

San Jose-based Intermolecular Inc has announced that it is engaging in an ongoing project together with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, to enhance CIGS thin-film manufacturing. 

The Kingdom recently unveiled the most ambitious solar plans in the world, to power a third of the Kingdom with a $109bn investment in solar. The collaboration is indicative of several moves the Saudis have now made to develop a domestic solar manufacturing sector within the Kingdom.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is focusing enormous resources on developing renewable energy technologies as part of the strategy to transform its fossil-fuel-based economy in the coming decades,” says Ghassan Jabbour, director of Solar and Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center (SPERC)SPERC. “KAUST is at the forefront of this effort and sees CIGS technology as extremely promising in terms of its potential to deliver the lowest-cost solar electricity in the Kingdom."


KAUST will collaborate using Intermolecular’s High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) platform in California for R&D into CIGS materials, led by research scientist Dr Jessica Eid, a member of professor Jabbour’s team. Intermolecular’s HPC platform claims that it allows R&D experimentation to be performed at speeds up to 100 times faster than traditional methods.

“Working with Intermolecular’s team and HPC platform allows us to accelerate our mission of developing sustainable solar power,” professor Jabbour added.