Marketscan
Power-saving solar technology
IBM has joined forces with semiconductor process company Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (TOK) to develop more efficient solar power technologies to cut the cost of clean energy source, the companies said on Monday.
The move is the latest by large technology companies to enter the burgeoning field of photovoltaic solar products, which turn sunlight into electricity without releasing the pollutants that are emitted from coal, oil and nuclear power generation.
International Business Machines Corp will contribute its expertise in manufacturing cells, while TOK will bring its technology used in the semiconductor industry and for coating LCD panels. The partnership is seeking to create techniques that double the efficiency of thin film solar modules, making them capable of converting more of the sun’s rays into electricity.
IBM Research’s Supratik Guha, who leads its solar photovoltaic activities, said the companies did not plan to enter the solar module production business, but hoped to licence their technology to producers in the next two to three years. “We’ve already been in discussions with photovoltaic manufacturers. There are problems to be resolved,” he said.
The partnership will focus on developing new methods for printing copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) cells that can turn more than 15 per cent of sunlight into power -- a significant improvement on the 6 per cent to 12 per cent efficiency that current solar CIGS makers have achieved in their fabrication plants.
Mr. Guha declined to specify the companies’ projected sales from the technology that will come from their link-up, but described the potential market as huge. Researchers at the U.S. Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory announced in April that they had set a new efficiency record of 19.9 per cent for CIGS cells, nearing the record for multi-crystalline silicon cells of 20.3 per cent. - PTI
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