Thin Film PV

E.ON has inaugurated its solar farm near the southern French town of Le Lauzet. E.ON Climate & Renewables' first solar farm is located about 155 miles north of Marseilles in southern France. The first phase of the Le Lauzet facility will consist of 12 675 Malibu PV modules placed on a 20-hectare site. Once all sections have been completed the solar farm will have a capacity of five megawatts. The plant at Le Lauzet uses various modules made by different manufacturers. They include thin-film modules manufactured at E.ON's production facility in Magdeburg. The idea is to test the performance and efficiency of different modules under field conditions. The company also recently opened the new Malibu production site near Magdeburg. This €100 million investment has created around 120 new jobs in Sachsen-Anhalt with an additional 30 posts being created at the R&D facility in Bielefeld. Malibu GmbH & Co. KG is a joint venture between E.ON AG and Schüco International KG with both companies holding a 50% stake. The production of thin-film solar modules is being supported by research and development efforts at the Bielefeld facility. The company believes that thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules offer an attractive option for solar power generation and it has invested in this technology at this juncture to gain experience early in the development and operation of such facilities. It also acknowledged that at this stage the commercial viability of such plants is held back only by the cost of producing the modules and by their energy-conversion efficiency. But considerable technological advances are expected in the next five years.

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