Odersun to Make CIS-on-Copper Goods in China

Ever since the Chinese government began discussing solar incentives earlier this year, non-Chinese companies have wondered how they could get a slice of this potentially huge market.

The consensus so far is it would be tough to crack the Chinese market because it's so new and because the government's policies are seen as measures to help its own solar manufacturers.

Teaming up with Chinese companies, then, seems a good strategy. Odersun, a German thin-film developer, is taking that route by creating a joint venture with Advanced Technology & Materials (AT&M), Odersun said Monday.

The Beijing-based joint venture would produce solar cells and panels using Odersun's technology, which deposits copper-indium-disulphide on copper stripes that are only 1 centimeter wide and 0.1 millimeter thick.

Odersun and AT&M have known each other since 2004, when AT&M invested in the German company.

The handful of non-Chinese companies that have announced plans for the Chinese market include Enfinity, a Netherlands-based project developer that has teamed up with LDK Solar and China Guandong Nuclear Power for a 10-megawatt project in Dunhuang City, Gansu province.

Two months ago, Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar said it had a deal with the Chinese government to build a 2-gigawatt solar power plant in Inner Mongolia.