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| Edited By: N N Sachitanand |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 17, 2018, 03:20 AM IST
Hind High Vacuum (HHV), a Bangalore-based vacuum technology player, has set up a fully automated thin-film solar photovoltaic (SPV) module production line with a capacity of 10 megawatt a year.
The company has also formed a joint venture with Solar Source Corporation (SSC), a Canadian renewable energy holding company, to establish Canada’s first thin-film amorphous silicon solar panel manufacturing plant. The technology and equipment will be supplied by HHV.
With the development of thin-film production line, the company has broken into the ranks of the few firms which have technologies to make thin film SPV panels.
Because of its low capital cost, HHV’s line, which is a result of a decade-long research, can deliver modules at as low as $1.2 per watt and is nearly competitive with coal-fired electricity. The global SPV market is divided into systems based on silicon crystal and those on thin films.
To be located at Prince Edward Island near Canada’s eastern seaboard, the plant will have an annual capacity of 120 mw, to be established in four phases, with 30 mw coming up in the phase one. The plant will make panels for the building-integrated, ground-mount and commercial rooftop markets.
The joint venture also includes a proposal to build in four phases a 120 mw crystalline silicon solar panel manufacturing facility in Ontario. The total investment on the two projects will be around $240 million with the Canadian government and its agencies providing initial support of $30 million.
The global market for SPV systems, which directly converts sunlight to electricity, has boomed over the past decade, growing at a rate of over 35% per year.
It is estimated that thin-film technologies, which currently accounts for 10% of the global market, would enjoy rapid growth and account for almost 19% of the PV market by 2013.
Annual production of SPV reached nearly 7,000 mw in 2008 and BCC Research estimated that the annual capacity will nearly double by 2013. The SPV industry is projected to grow from $20 billion in 2007 to $32 billion in 2012 and $74 billion by 2017.
