The announcement comes roughly eight months after IBM announced record efficiency of 9.6 percent for CZTS-based solar cells, up 40% on previous CZTS solar cells.
The new partnership will couple IBM’s research with Solar Frontier’s thin-film development and manufacturing capabilities to create a cost-competitive solar technology that is inexpensive and uses earth-abundant (indium-free) materials.
A similar agreement between IBM and DelSolar Co Ltd of Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park (Taiwan) was announced in September.
“Solar Frontier is one of the world’s leading experts in CIS-based thin-film solar panels,” said T.C. Chen, VP of science & technology IBM Research. “Adding Solar Frontier’s deep expertise in thin-film-based solar device technology to this project will strengthen the collaborative effort we began in this area with [process equipment maker] Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co Ltd [in mid-2008] for developing chemistry and tooling expertise; and more recently adding DelSolar’s solar module and manufacturing expertise.”
“This team will significantly increase our ability to create CZTS photovoltaic technology that achieves sustainable grid parity,” Chen added.
Much of the research will take place at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights in NY (US).
CZTS-based technology uses materials that avoid heavy metals and are readily available at a lower cost. By virtue of these materials, the goal of the project is to create next-generation solar technology that lowers the cost of producing electricity, enabling solar energy to become a ubiquitous alternative to carbon-based energy sources.
“Solar Frontier’s extensive experience in the R&D of CIS thin-film photovoltaic technologies has delivered numerous conversion efficiency breakthroughs that have resulted in world-class records,” said the firm’s chief technology officer, Satoru Kuriyagawa. “We are interested in exploring CZTS for its evolutionary compatibility with our CIS thin-film technology. The goals of the project correspond with Solar Frontier’s mission to combine both economical and ecological solar energy solutions.”
Solar Frontier currently has two manufacturing facilities in Miyazaki, Japan. A third plant with annual capacity of 900MW will become operational in 2011, making it the world’s largest PV production facility and bringing Solar Frontier’s total capacity to 1GW -- expected to be the world’s largest CIS PV capacity.
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