Companies Crowd Into CIGS Space

CIGS is the VC folly of the renewable energy revolution.
CIGS is a doomed material system, not so much because of the material, but because of the cost of packaging and encapsulation.  First Solar’s CdTe simplifies this packaging with a glass on glass lamination process.  CdTe wins, a-Si places, and CIGS fails. 

Norrin,

What prevents CIGS from using a similar encapsulation process as that used by First Solar?

The majority of CIGS players are not using a glass substrate like FSLR - they tout the benefits of flexible substrates in a roll to roll process.  So they are using metal or polymer substrates which ostensibly simplifies the deposition process but enormously complicates the packaging process. 

Norrin:  “CIGS is the VC folly of the renewable energy revolution”

Care to elaborate?  Before responding, I suggest you look into Vitex’s encapsulation of CIGS published in March;

http://www.vitexsys.com/new/flexible.htm

If you have time, also please share your immense knowledge of CIGS’s drawbacks—particularly the technical issues those silly engineers at IBM missed.  Then explain why Nanosolar’s product won’t work [specifically how their first 1mw free-field install is failing] and if you have time, explain the drawbacks of Nanosolar’s 100ft/min 1GW CIGS tool shown in the video link.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/nanosolar-creates-largest-thin-film-tool-1023.html

Thanking you in advance,
I remain,
Sincerely,
Yours Truly,

Steve Pluvia

Steve,
The IBM CIGS project is still very researchy.  Is it not?  I believe IBM is also working on Si and on triple junction cells as well.  Research is what they’re good at.  Perhaps IBM will succeed with mass commercialization of CIGS but the landscape will be littered with the many semiconductor guys who thought that doing solar was a straightforward extension of their core skills.
Thanks for the Vitex link.  Another holy grail conquered. 
I look forward to Nanosolar’s success.  In the meantime I look forward to hearing what their efficiency levels are on their initial “1MW” installation.  I also look forward to their long-time reliability testing info.  Can you help with any insight into this info?

If anything, CIGS is easier to package than CdTe: Because unlike with CdTe, at least the thin-film device stack is fundamentally stable with CIGS.  (The CdTe thin-film stack is not intrinsically stable; its backelectrode is known to be instable.)  So the packaging solutions that work for CIGS are a superset of what works for CdTe.

Norrin:  “I also look forward to their long-time reliability testing info.” 

Read the published study of the Vitex encapsulation of CIGS; it includes an environmental load test. As to what “IBM is good at”; Last year’s $101 billion in revenue suggests they’re good at developing and selling products, not wasting money on pointless research.

Steve Pluvia

Martin,

We’re keenly interested in a multi year contract to purchase 20MW/yr of your product—I’ve left you my e-mail if you’d like to discuss.  Congratulations on your new tool.

Steve Pluvia
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Isnt the issue with CIGS and CdTe packaging the moisture ingress? Glass is the only true moisture barrier thats cost effeciant. Vitex claims they can provide a flexible barrier down to .00001 grams/mtr sq/day , but its way too expensive for PV, so its not viable. Even though aSi is lower in output, it can be packaged at a reasonable cost.