Photo Credit: Shuco
article tools
Increase Text Size Increase Text Size Decreate Text Size Decrease Text Size
Share Email This Story Share Share This Story Reader comments Reader Comments (17) View image gallery Image Gallery (1) Add to favorites Add to Bookmarks Printer friendly version Printer Friendly Version
Article Tool Sponsor:

Advertise with us

More Jobs
0 ratings - Sign-in to rate this article
September 7, 2007

Ultra Thin Solar Modules to Make 2008 Debut in Germany

by Jane Burgermeister, Contributing Writer
Vienna, Austria [RenewableEnergyAccess.com]

A new generation of ultra thin solar modules that can be integrated into the facades of buildings at low cost is to be produced in Germany next year. The German company Schueco has joined up with E.ON, the country's biggest energy company, to invest 100 million euros [$US 136 million] in the research and production of this new ultra thin solar technology that cuts down on the need for silicon, the costly raw material for solar cells.

"Theoretically, this technology could supply the entire electricity needs of a building, depending on its size, location and the amount of sun it gets. We believe that this new technology could be integrated into a huge number of existing office buildings and also in new buildings because investors increasingly recognize the importance of carbon neutral buildings."

-- Thomas Lauritzen, Spokesman, Schueco

Production is due to start at a site in Saxony-Anhalt in the second half of 2008.

"Our researchers are currently working on developing more efficient solar modules of more than six percent and also on ways of producing modules at a far lower cost in order to make them more attractive for builders and architects," Thomas Lauritzen, spokesman for Schüeco, told RenewableEnergyAccess.com.

The high absorption level of amorphous silicon will allow solar cells to be produced that are a few micrometers in thickness—much thinner than conventional mono and polycrystalline silicon solar cells. Glass panels of varying sizes—up to 5.7 square meters and with an output of 460 W/h—will give builders the flexibility to cover the maximum surface of any façade.

"Theoretically, this technology could supply the entire electricity needs of a building, depending on its size, location and the amount of sun it gets. We believe that this new technology could be integrated into a huge number of existing office buildings and also in new buildings because investors increasingly recognize the importance of carbon neutral buildings," said Lauritzen.

The U.S. company Applied Materials will supply the nanomanufacturing technology for the production, which will be carried out by a newly founded umbrella company called Malibu.

Lauritzen added that he sees a huge export market for the new modules in southern Europe.

Following in the footsteps of Germany—France, Italy, Greece and Spain have recently introduced legislation giving financial incentives to producers of solar electricity. Also, individual cities in Europe are enacting renewable energy legislation: the city of Barcelona in Spain recently issued a law requiring every new public building to have solar technology installed.

"The countries in southern Europe have recognized the huge potential for solar energy that they have and are introducing a favourable legal and financial framework. That's why we expect the demand to grow there, but we are also interested in other markets, including the U.S.," said Lauritzen.

Since 1997, the photovoltaic (PV) industry in Germany has reduced the unit cost for solar electricity power plants by 50 percent and the costs are expected to fall further and to be 85 percent below the 1990 cost by 2020.

Government legislation that guarantees solar electricity suppliers a certain minimum price has also boosted the use of PV electricity: 2000 GW/h was installed in 2006 compared to just 76 GW/h in 2001.

Of Germany's electricity, 1 percent is produced today by solar power plants, but this is estimated to rise to 25 percent by 2050, saving the country an estimated 100 million tons of carbon emissions.

About 220,000 new solar power plants were installed in 2006, mostly on roofs, taking the total number of solar electricity and thermal power plants installed in Germany to 1.3 million.

To meet the growing demand, more than one billion euros is being invested this year in solar factories according to the industry association, the German Solar Industry (Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft).

Between 2007 and 2008, 15 new solar production facilities will be built, mainly in eastern Germany. Exports of the PV branch are also booming: exports were valued at 1 billion euros in 2006 and are estimated to rise to 11 billion euros by 2020, the industry association says.

Furthermore, the number of employees has increased tenfold since 1999 in the PV sector alone, rising to 35,000 people in 2006; with the number expected to reach 100,000 by 2020. Altogether, the solar thermal and PV industry employed 54,000 people in Germany in 2006.

Jane Burgermeister is a freelance science writer based in Austria.

Image Gallery (1)
 
Reader Comments (17)
 
No image available
September 7, 2007

The installation of Solar PV is mostly political and not driven by efficiency or economics.

Germany is crazy about solar due to German political systems, green parties. labor unions and even some conservatives.Solar is everything from clean energy, union jobs, and self defense from the Russians (traditional enemy) that control the natural gas and to a lesser extent the oil markets in Europe. Solar does a service to each of those interest, even if it is expensive.

If you contrast it with military spending and warefare, it might even be cost effective for that once great power. I hate to concede this point, but Iraq does cost a fortune and we will not know the results 10 years from now. We didn't know the FULL results of US occupation of Western Europe until the close of cold war - a mere 40 years. Remember President Carter was virtually willing to surrender the cold war in the late 1970s - thank God for Reagan.

 

 


Comment 1 of 17
No image available
September 7, 2007
California isn't the best place for Wind.
And yet they pioneered the booming wind industry.
Besides which, if they prove that it works in Germany, they can do it anywhere.

Comment 2 of 17
No image available
September 7, 2007

I don’t mean to sound cynical, ok I do but only with the best intentions, I know Germany is known as the sun shine capital of Europe. Why is this not being tested in Greece or Miami where the weather is a bit better, or is this a plan to produce energy through rain clouds?


Comment 3 of 17
No image available
September 8, 2007
In response to Jeff Cleveland's post I think he might want to explore the possibility that UV and not necessarily direct sunshine is the energy source for PV technology.
Comment 4 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

Yes solar is a good fit for summer cooling peak demand (and

 

climate warming should just keep moving that up in importance).

 

And no there are few to no economic ways to store electric

 

power. One is to use a hydro dam and to either withhold

 

generation whenever intermittent renewables are producing, then

 

crank up the hydro as needed; or even to do "pumped storage"

 

where excess renewables (won't that be a dream?) can be stored

 

as water pumped uphill into the reservoir. Other options are

 

compressing air into underground caverns for use later to drive

 

air turbines, and "flow batteries" such as vanadium-redox,

 

though those are still in early testing.


Comment 5 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

I agree this is a great discussion - no name calling  and lots of sound thinking.

Germany has a strong commitment to promoting solar, wind and other renewables as a matter of policy. Part of this is their choice to move away from nuclear electricity.

Solar is the most expensive major CO2-neutral electricity source. Costs were on a very long steady decline until lately when Japan, California and Germany all started "N-thousand solar roofs" installation programs, and the market could not keep up the supply of purified silicon. Lots of new sources are being developed and the crunch should soon ease a bit.

 

 


Comment 6 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

Nice input from everyone,....I love the differnet points of view. 

How about when we build an efficient Lithium battery for our cars (PHEVS) we use the same design and construction to store the power from our PV's that we will all be shortly installing without having too many different designs.  Use the same design for both and create economies of scale pricing.

After all,...no company wants to retool every year to keep products selling.  Let the car bodies change to appeal year after year.  Let the battery design desities work for both PV cell storage and automobile power.  This is obviously where we're headed.  We can't drive "tidal or geothermal cars".

Keep things simple, don't overengineer, but lets' get going NOW.  Detroit is "done like dinner" and Ford and Chevy are very nervous.

We can do it!

Best to All.

FBerry


Comment 7 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007
 What is the USA doing? Where are our research labs? I live in Arizona "The Valley of the Sun" and read or hear litle to NOTHING about SOLAR. Arizona State University should be leading the way.
Comment 8 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

WRT roofs vs. walls: amorphous cells typically have much better response to diffuse light, so probably do quite a bit better than silicon in such an application. Of course, their efficiency is far lower.

 

WRT energy timing: in the summer electricity use typically peaks with AC in the afternoon, PV is an excellent match. But you're right, storage systems are key. Lots of interesting work on batteries these days, but no really stand-out options. Soon I hope.

 


Comment 9 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

There is one thing what bothers me about PV. the most electricity is used during night time and this is exactly the time when PVs are completly useless...I don't understand why more money is not spend in how to store electricity. As far as I know they are having problems with the network of so many green sources.

I think the Germans are the only ones who can really produce mercedes quality for any building product. I hope they will continue with their research. They test their products and dont just put them on a shipping container and stick Made in China, good luck with the product...


Comment 10 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

Jim,

Unlike the U.S., Germany has actually been cut-off from world oil production, and had to make its own energy.  Those lessons die hard.  As long as the oil flows, our representatives sit on their hands.  If you take a slightly longer view, you can see we live in a 125 yr energy bubble.  News came out last week that the Saudi's have constitently over estimated there reserves, and it appears the Saudi feilds have peaked some time in 2006.  This is 10 years ahead of the most pessimistic forecasts.  Those who understand what this means are worried.  The end of oil will not be sudden, but it is coming sooner than you think.  We must invest in a renewable future and not stick to conservative short sighted policies. The production costs of solar must come down.  This can't be done by waiting. Renewable energy is not optional, it is an imperative. The politicians in Germany get this.  Our politicians will get it when the oil supplies tighten and our economy begins to tank.  I hope it's not too late by then.


Comment 11 of 17
September 12, 2007
The already low efficiency of these modules would be crippled if mounted on the walls of a building rather than the roof. When the sun is not directly on the panels, output plummets. The sun is overhead much of the day from April trough September. Even in winter, when the sun stays closer to the horizon, other buildings would impede direct exposure.
Comment 12 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

The application of Building Integrated (BI) PV systems is particularly interesting because it demonstrates several advantages compared with conventional PV power plants. Moreover, on-site generation has the additional efficiency benefit of avoiding the transmission and distribution losses associated with centralized generation. However, the solar PV array has a typical efficiency of 8 to 15 %. This means that the remaining 85 to 92 % of the energy is in principle available in the form of heat. The availability of heat together with electricity is a good chance for better design the system integration into the user overall energy demand scheme. Moreover, 5 putting this heat to use improves the system total efficiency and cost effectiveness [1]. Various concepts of combined PV/Thermal (PV/T) collectors are possible. The simplest design is similar to a solar thermal flat plate collector of which the black absorber is replaced by encapsulated solar cells. Heat is extracted from the solar PV/T array by a heat-transporting medium like water or air. These concepts differ in their approach to obtain the maximum yield and it is not easy to say whether the yield of a complicated design will be substantially higher than the yield of a simpler one. They strongly depend on the specific configuration of the collector (geometry, materials, etc. ) and on the running conditions (air or water air flow rates, temperatures, etc.) together with climatic conditions of operation.

The long-term goal is to realize GC Solar System (GCSS) that produce electrical as well as thermal energy at sufficiently low cost. This means that the  investment costs has to be lowered as much as possible. This can only be achieved by careful design, proper realization, optimization, standardization and mass production. In addition to this, PV/T building elements should also be designed in such a way that they meet architectural requirements and technical standards and look attractive to consumers as well. From this standpoint the recent study [1] was undertaken to include proposed GCSS targets the two dominating energy demands in residential buildings: low level energy for water heating and high level energy (electricity) to cover a significant fraction of the electricity demand. The study result shows that, GCSS offer some potential advantages over a separate GCSS consisting of side-by-side solar PV panels and thermosyphon solar water heaters, enabling faster introduction solar energy buildings. For the case study the annual specific rate of fossil fuel saving in electrical power grid amount 269.4  kg.fuel/year per square meter of the solar PV/T collectors as a result of 199.6 kW.hr/year.m2 electrical, and 904.5 kW.hr/m2.year thermal, power generation. However, solar PV/T collector concept results in lower direct electric and thermal power output, but the advantages are a potential of high specific rate of fossil fuel saving and good overall performance of the solar system. Such concept requires careful analysis on a case-by-case basis of potential future commercial applications, which may greatly benefit from cogeneration of hot water and electrical power.  [1] Hussain Alrobaei, 2007 , The Effectiveness of Combined Heat and Power Solar Water Heating Systems/ environmental-expert.com/resultarticlept.asp.   
Comment 13 of 17
No image available
September 12, 2007

Interesting indeed, as XSUNX in the US are into the same ideas about amorphous silicon.

XSUNX planes to set up a 100 MW producion facility in the end of 2009.

A good investment opertunity there, I think. !!  

 


Comment 14 of 17
No image available
September 13, 2007
Let's give credit where credit is due so full marks to the German people for their leadership in solar energy. As we all know there is no global silver bullet for the energy & greenhouse problems. Here in Australia solar is well suited to our climate with peak electricity demand in Summer afternoons.
Comment 15 of 17
No image available
September 13, 2007
Chuk, I don't know were you live, but I have been living in Ireland for the last 3 years and winter time (6-7 months) the lights are one for most of the day. The same in UK. I lived 12 years in Germany and again in winter it gets very dark. Not to forget the scandinavian countries. I am a total  supporter of soler power but I think it is going only in one direction. And the thing with batteries...can you recycle those???? I have been doing research on all renweable sytems now for over 2 years and one thing I miss. They are just not enough to cover all the energy needs of a household and of an office. Trying to combine them like most of the time done in practice is very user unfriendly and with complications. Is like the computers, you have a thousand cables going out to different hardware and in reality one would do for all if the producers agreed one system.
Comment 16 of 17
No image available
September 13, 2007

How is it that most electricity is used at night?  My office building is empty between 5:31PM and 8:01AM, and the A/C turns off automatically during that time.  For an office building, a huge percentage of electricity is used during the DAY, so PV is the perfect solution.  Residential is nearly opposite, depending on how many people in the house work/school away from home, but, even for residential, PV with batteries is still a much better solution than grid power.


Comment 17 of 17
Add Your Comment

Registered users, please make sure to Sign-In. We and others want to know your ideas and opinions. If you are not yet Registered -- it's quick and easy. Just click below.
Thanks!

Register Now   Sign-In
Featured Total Access Partners
Click company logos to learn more
Ferraz Shawmut ACE European Group POWER-GEN India and Central Asia AltaTerra Research GeoGenix LLC Thompson Technology Industries, Inc. (TTI)
WORLD'S #1 RENEWABLE ENERGY NETWORK
World's #1 Renewable Energy Network Logo