US-based Innovalight, which sells silicon ink for enhancing solar cell efficiencies, will use a $3.4 million (€2.3 million) grant from the US government to fund its ink manufacturing technology.
The Department of Energy (DoE) grant will accelerate the development and production of silicon ink material and processes for high-efficiency solar cells at the company's operations in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, California.
Innovalight manufactures a nanotechnology-based silicon ink, and licenses a proprietary process that allows for a simple upgrade to solar cell manufacturing lines to boost the performance of solar cells and lower production costs.
Supply
The company recently announced supply agreements with several of the largest solar cell manufacturing companies in the world. Most of Innovalight's clients are in China and include JA Solar, Yingli Solar, and Solarfun.
Earlier in 2011 Taiwanese firm Motech became Innovalight's latest customer. Motech, which reached 1GW in production capacity in Q3 2010, is the largest solar cell manufacturer in Taiwan and one of the top 10 manufacturers worldwide, in terms of production capacity and output.
Expansion
Innovalight is establishing distribution agreements with partners in Japan and South Korea to support its expansion into additional solar cell markets in Asia, where solar cell manufacturing is emerging as a high-growth microelectronics segment.
Innovalight's technology can be used with crystalline silicon solar cells. There are 40-50 firms manufacturing these solar cells today, with over 80% based in Asia - most in China.
The DoE's SunShot Initiative aims to dramatically decrease the total costs of solar energy at the utility, commercial and residential levels by 75% by 2020, making solar energy cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity without subsidies and enabling widespread deployment of the technology.
The next issue of +Plastic Electronics magazine is a nanotechnology special, with a series of articles on the latest technologies and emerging markets for printed nanoelectronics. The magazine will be appearing at the forthcoming NanoMaterials 2011 conference.
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Documents and links
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Innovalight
Innovalight’s ink and technology lets solar manufacturers deposit very thin conductive tracks during solar cell production
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NanoMaterials 2011
The leading conference focused on commercialisation of nanomaterials in Europe
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Nano solar developer secures funding to commercialise technology
A Norwegian company developing a new thin-film solar cell has begun a programme to develop a prototype by 2013, with the aim of commercialisation by 2015 at the earliest
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Dye solar firm launches energy harvesting products with Texas Instruments
Welsh dye-sensitised solar cell firm G24 Innovations is launching a nano-power energy harvesting product range in a strategic development agreement with semiconductor firm Texas Instruments
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