Texas, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] HelioVolt Corporation has opened its first factory for manufacturing thin-film solar energy products. The 122,400 square-foot facility in Austin, Texas is expected to create approximately 160 new jobs and will have an initial capacity of 20 megawatts.
This factory is the first commercial implementation of HelioVolt’s FASST reactive transfer printing process for solar thin film production. FASST is designed to bring solar energy to grid-parity by combining lower cost thin film materials with superior manufacturing efficiencies and high quality end products, the company said.
FASST delivers copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells that exceeded 12 percent conversion efficiency in a record setting six minutes during independent testing. HelioVolt is using FASST to develop both conventional modules and next-generation building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products for the global solar energy market.
“This company was founded on the principal of making solar energy cost-effective, essentially aligning economic and environmental interests to fundamentally change our global energy industry. We are furthering that vision by ensuring that this company is built upon the very concepts of sustainability that we aim to enable in others,” said Dave Bowen, vice president of operations at HelioVolt.
