South Africa Pioneers New Solar Technology
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 02.16.06
A few days ago an article appeared in the Cape Argus of South Africa, proclaiming a breakthrough in solar power technology. We could not find a great deal of correlating reports, so will simply relay what what we found from just a few sources. Apparently the technology resulted from over 10 years of research, led by Professor Vivian Alberts of the University of Johannesburg. He and his team seem to have developed a flexible, thin, metal alloy that is “photo-responsive”. This alloy is said to result in panels with are only 5 micron thick (compared to a human hair at 20 microns, and silicon photovoltaic cells at 350 microns.) Earlier reports (in 2004) indicated the alloy was copper-indium(gallium)-diselenide (CIGS), with another article inferring the panels would have a useful life of about 20 years, with the energy in fabricating them recovered within the first 1-2 years of operation. And that the materials used could all be later recycled to make fresh cells. It is said that a standard family home would need around 30m/sq (“(about the size of a living room”) of CIGS solar panels to meet all its electricity demands.
Unspecified new storage devices (batteries of some sort) and converters have been created alongside these new cells to store the collected energy. It is suggested these new panels can generate electricity even during winter, not requiring direct sunlight to function. Seemingly German investors are behind establishing European plants, which will be producing 1,000 such panels per day, with local South African factories to also be contemplated. Much Thanks to TH Tipster Conrad Z. for pointing us to the piece in the ::Cape Argus.
I sincerely hope this initiative is not going to be blocked by red-tape, if it's as wonderful as claimed. Here in South Africa we are plagued by an monopolized, ageing and oft-black-outing system for power, administrators that may or may not be corrupt, and more of a political agenda than help for the people who need it. There is little movement toward encouraging alternative energy, or anything other than damage control of the current system.
Last night's TV show in the run-up to our local municipal elections highlighted just how broken our power/electricity system is. Many substations were installed in the 1950's and have not been upgraded. Power is stolen illegally off pylons passing through informal settlements and rural areas. Rolling blackouts are the order of the day, summer and winter, as demand exceeds capability and power stations simply shut down.
If, independant of beaurocracy, these guys can get viable and affordable solar power in operation, it will make a huge difference to our communities. In more ways than just power supply. Many deaths each year are caused by the use of candles and paraffin burners where electricity is lacking (sweeping fires regularly take out thousands of shacks at a time).
All photovoltaic solar panels can generate electricity from diffuse light, and will thus generate electricity in winter. The yield will ofcourse be lower than in summer.
Only solar thermal electric power plants are solely dependent on direct sunlight. This is because they concentrate sunlight with mirrors and lenses. The concentrated light is used to create steam, which powers a conventional steamgenerator. Only direct sunlight can be concentrated in that way.
ah looking into this a bit, I see that this must be the thin-film solarPV tech that Shell bought into recently.
However I still can't find exact statistcs for this type of solar PV.
Sorry folks,
Nasa, DOD, etc. has producing these types of panels for years for space missions. Of course it has been quite slow to trickle down (ie. they don't want it to!)to the commercial sector. But with all that budget cutting who knows what we will start seeing!
A lot of the specifics in the article don't check out. No posting on the UJ website, no article by the prof, the German compnay mentioned, doesn't seem to exist.
Yes, CIGS solar panels have been used in space because of their high efficiency. They are also very high in cost which is why they haven't been easily available for public use. It just costs too much. I didn't see anything in this article that addresses the pricing issue.
Hello,
I have read the previous post and I must say. “some of these post seem to be why we have not embraced this technology more.” We all have to take the risk to provide and use this type of technology immediately. If we don’t it may be a bleak environmental future for our children and grandchildren." To those of you who are embracing this type of technology, Thank you.
--If I misunderstood the posts, I apologize.
--I must thank you (Professor Vivian Alberts) and your coleges for making such a great contribution to our lives. I would be proud to have such technology on my home. In fact I wish I did. This is a great step for our future. Just moving to the Pennsylvania area, were the winters temperatures vary so greatly. I have become more concerned about home fuel cost and environmental hardship than in the past. In hearing about this breakthrough, I wish I could have it installed immediately. Again, thank you on behalf of our future and our planet.
Read the other article http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/november/energy.htm. The break through is the manufacturing process. It makes CIGS cheaper to manufacture
I wonder if these are mulit band-gap PVs that were promised to offer 50%+ conversion by now.
At the very least I hope the reference to working in winter refers to it converting IR wavelength light into e-.
Here's another article that contains some additional information:
http://free.financialmail.co.za/innovations/05/0603/einn.htm
I believe this is the website of the German company mentioned in the article. The site is in German but it is clear they are involved in photovoltaics:
http://www.ife-net.de/
That's some extremely interesting news, and perhaps will have a strong impact on the space industry, but does anyone have any figures on the material cost of producing these solar panels?
Will they be practical for general consumption?
This article is very short on details
1) Name of company operating plant.
2) Cost per peak watt.
3) Location of plant
4) Exploration of toxicity end of life issues
5) Contact information
Where can we get these solar pannels I need it.
This is April 16, 2006
A long silence is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do wish someone involved with this would release more info.
If this technology truly exists and has reasonable costs and low to negligible toxicity levels (production and end-of-life) then it has truly made my day! BTW, "Ken Huck" was the name of a friend of mine years ago in Vancouver, Canada. Wouldn't it be amazing if this is the same person?
I certainly hope that this project takes off and is not bought out by profit-seeking giants exploiting every last resource on earth. Prof. Alberts, please get the show on the road.
More info here: http://www.csir.co.za/plsql/ptl0002/PTL0002_PGE082_PROJ?DIVISION_NO=7142479&PROJECT_NO=7233970
just bought a house in south africa and really want these new solar panels.....can anyone help me find out precise info, ordering and cost?
Would like to find out more details of system . Can you give me Vivian Alberts phone and email address
According to the following link http://www.ife-net.de/news/tomorrows%20energy.pdf , a german company is going to be manufacturing these new solar pannels! Why are they not being manufactured in South Africa???
Hi all of you who are reading this, i have a business making solar voltaic power units for homes ,and this article is very interesting,and i hope its true, its about time a new improved tech was available,we sure could use it,,,but i make it my business to find out about this sort of thing,what i know is this, the very efficient panels do exist, but one tends to find that they are discreditted as soon as they are announced, but hold your horses,somethings will be let through soon
I'm involved in my family's electrical contracting company and we very interested in diversifying into CIGS panelling for domestic use. Can someone tell me who to contact. I'm in Cape Town and you can well imagine what the uncertainty of constant power supply is causing.
Hi just came across abit of an update if youve missed it.The company producing these panels is IFE projekt alongside aleo solar of gemany. a new plant is being built in Branden an der Havel with production starting next year 07. There is also an entry for european and worldwide patents. Along with most other people I wil be delighted when we can get some of these actually mounted on our rooofs.
http://www.aleo-solar.de/index.php/page_id/49/language/en
Thin film solar CIGS solar technology has been around for some time(since the 1980s) with a number of companies working on it. Shell Solar which inherited the technology from ARCO Solar sells panels that are in the 11% range. This is still lower than the 15 to 20% conversion efficiency possible from crystalline silicon panels.
I am surprised that the South African panels are quite thick compared to competitors 1-2 micron absorber layers. So the competitive advantages of the South Africans compared to e.g. International Solar Electric's 'PV paint' process are not at all clear.
Jerry
News about the Germand IFE factory to start producing these in 2007 in this article: http://www.photon-magazine.com/news/news_2006-04_eu_aleo.htm
News about the Germand IFE factory to start producing these in 2007 in this article: http://www.photon-magazine.com/news/news_2006-04_eu_aleo.htm. IFE has created a company called Johanna Solar Technology Gmbh to manufacture them. http://www.ife-net.de/en/johanna.php
I think this is the website of the factory that is going to produce the new solar-panels. The pages are all in German.
http://www.johanna-solar.com/cgi-bin/news/view.pl
Hi, I'm a South African who lives near Cape Town and has the aricle that came out in the Cape Argus (11 Feb, 2006) in front of me. Prof. Alberts is a respected UNIVERSITY professor, not a private one, or shady businessman. The German company (IFE Solar Systems) has good existing infrustructure & therefore will manufac. first before SA. This special material has now been patented worldwide & couldn't have been if it existed (in this unique form) already! Alberts wouldnt have spent 10 years of research on such small funding (untill now) if NASA had a patent. According to the article it will be a fraction of the price (because as you know it is a fraction of the thickness)
These new solar panels are much thinner than normal silicon pv's and will therefore be MUCH CHEAPER according to the article in the Cape Argus!
My reading of this development is as follows:
-CIGS have been around for some time, are all thin-film and relatively high efficiency, offering advantages over silicon PV.
-Dr. Alberts' breakthrough is a significantly cheaper process for making CIGSe-type PV cells. The conventional process is done by sputtering and requires a high vacuum.
- A plant is being built in Germany; a plant will eventually be built in South Africa.
-The German plant, when at full capacity, will produce about 30 MW, and is planned to go to 60 MW by 2009
- A competing technology for making CIGS is going into production in the US, made by a company called Nanosolar (http://www.nanosolar.com). All of the information I have about Nanosolar comes from their website; this company has been the subject of articles in the New York Times, and they have attracted investment from among others, the founders of Google. Nanosolar's process involves printing onto a plastic substrate - doubtless this is one step in a multistep process, but the "nanotechnology" approach they have taken obviates the need for high vacuum - hence the cost is significantly lower. According to their website, the new plant will produce enough cells each year to generate 430 MW of power - equivalent to one large power plant- although this number probably means at peak power.
-Nanosolar's process involves far less energy input, so the "energy payback" is -The German and US plants are being built with roughly the same amount of investment capital - ~100 million $US.
-There are other companies seeking to develop cheaper CIGS fabrication processes.
-One **possible** issue for both processes: the rare earth elements gallium and indium are produced as by-products of mining other metals. The annual world production is on the order of only 30 tons (that's 30,000 Kg) per year. The thin film processes use very little material and Nanosolar claims that there is almost no waste. However, when we talk about scaling this up to meet global energy needs, 30 tons doesn't sound like much - so there may be a resource limitation.
35 per cent transformation efficiency.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20645117-28737,00.html
Solar Systems thinks it has gone one better. It has developed breakthrough photovoltaic cells that can withstand temperatures that would melt steel while delivering a wider band of the sun's light directly into electricity, claiming about 35 per cent transformation efficiency. "Like most good technology, it's a very powerful combination of smart engineering and simple concepts," Holland says.
Nov 3 2006 update of what is happening with the Vivian Alberts South African technology: http://free.financialmail.co.za/innovations/06/1103/cinn.htm. Briefly, the German factory has licenced the technology from SA and will get production going there first, then help SA get a local production facility going.
Some detailed information for those who don't speak german.
http://www.johanna-solar.com is the german site who will start producing these CIGSSe panels supposedly in the middle of 2007. Right now they are constructing the biggest and most modern production facility in Brandenburg (Germany).
They offer 2 things of cooperation (you can not buy from them as a private person).
As a customer (under your own name - company) you can distribute their technologie. During that process the company will help and assist you.
The 2nd option is the technologie distribution. they will help selected interested companies (solar production) with their knowledege to create your own panels. They will help and assist you until production.
the australien site is interestting but way behind in production. and on the other hand they cannot even tell you yet if it is going to be affordable, due too the carbon market. For private users uninteressting and useless so far.
i wrote ife a letter they said they will return a information brochure when they are producing in late spring to me in 2007-8 in which i intend to buy from , if from them directly , or a distributor i imagine they are working out the details im only concerned about costs for a one person unit and battery and transformer these i dont know yet but are saving for.i have a electric bike already the only electrical transport in australia that im aware at present i can use,and green energy however i would like to supply my own for 20 years,until i die or nuclear prices and fossil will become far more expensive here i will weather it out my bike 316$aus.
I live in Cape Town and have a huge demand for this solar power concept.
Where are you with the concept and how soon before you will be able to distribute it, either directly or via agencies.
I would be particularly interested in the latter.
The perfect solution to Florida's power resources.
When and where can we purchase these solar cells and, how much will they cost ?
These cells are only 16% efficiency. It seems almost not worth bothering with, considering other cell technologys are already pushing 40%.
The CIGS technology these guys are basing this on has already been going since 1984, i'm confused what is NEW about this.
When and where can we purchase these solar pannels and, how much will they cost ?
WHAT DOES SOLAR PANELS COST FOR A HOUSE TO BW USED FOR A GEYSER
I represent a solar factory from Taiwan. I read much news about CIGSSe from 2005-2006, but since then there hasn't been much new news. From when are the new panels going to be available on the market?
We imagine that if this technology is cheaper and more efficient, then many factories around the world will have to close down or change their manufacturing process.
Can anybody tell me if it is genuinely so revolutionary and if so where are they available from in South Africa or Germany. My address is kewl1209@yahoo.com.
Thanks