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CubicPV, a U.S. solar manufacturer backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, will leverage support contained in the country’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to set up what will be the largest PV wafer manufacturing facility outside of China. I’m doing it.
The company last month unveiled plans to establish 10GW of mono-wafer capacity in the US with the aim of filling a void in the silicon solar value chain and leveraging IRA incentives.
“This is truly historic legislation,” said CubicPV CEO Frank van Mierlo, adding that the funding included in the IRA will make U.S.-made solar modules the most cost-effective in the world. Added.
“I believe that pencils in the US cost less than they do in China. says Mierlo. PV Tech Premium.
Following the merger of wafer makers 1366 Technologies and Hunt Perovskite Technologies in 2021, CubicPV has developed a direct-wafer technology that eliminates the ingot and sawing steps from wafer manufacturing, producing wafers directly from a bath of molten silicon. Did.
According to the manufacturer, the resulting product produces an ideal bottom cell for highly efficient tandem modules while reducing the carbon footprint over traditional methods.
After narrowing down the list of US wafer facility locations, CubicPV now has a strong contender. Site decisions are expected to be finalized by the end of March, with construction to begin shortly thereafter. The facility is projected to be fully launched in 2025.
According to Van Mierlo, CubicPV is getting a head start over other companies looking to start upstream PV manufacturing in the United States. He adds: “Speed is very important for investors here.”
Once fully ramped up, CubicPV’s wafer fab is expected to serve domestic and international demand. “I think the US market is the most attractive and I am confident it will take off,” says van Mierlo. He believes the US will have more than 50GW of annual solar manufacturing capacity by the end of his decade.
While a number of new U.S. manufacturing plans have been announced since President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law last August, upstream announcements are starting to pick up the pace. Enel Green Power plans to build his 3GW module and cell fab in the country, and Qcells announced earlier this month that it will grow his 3.3GW of ingots, wafers, cells and modules in Georgia in the first quarter of 2023. He announced that he would start construction of a production plant.
Van Mierlo believes that markets such as the United States are driving more PV manufacturing, indicating how mature the industry is. “The industries that really matter are multipolar, and solar power is growing and will become a multipolar industry with manufacturing all over the world,” he says. “Obviously the US has decided that we will be one of those manufacturing poles.”
With CubicPV’s wafer fab facility expected to employ more than 1,000 people, van Mierlo said one of the main challenges the company faces is assembling an engineering team to execute the project. It says. “Growing ingots is a relatively complex process. Even today, if you try to start making ingots in the best mills on the planet, you are only successful about half the time.”
Research and development of perovskite tandem
CubicPV announced last month that it has raised US$26 million in Series B funding to accelerate research and development of tandem solar modules, in addition to advancing wafer manufacturing. Private equity fund manager Synergy Capital and a subsidiary of Thai conglomerate Siam Cement Group led the round, with participation from repeat investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
According to the company, the tandem technology introduces a much-needed solution of stacking two light absorbers in one device to increase the power output of the end panel.
Current solar panels are around 22% efficient, but tandem promises to increase that to up to 30%, says van Mierlo. “The number of suitable locations and roofs for solar panels is very limited, so it is important to extract more energy from existing sources.”
Scientists claimed a record 30.1% conversion efficiency for a four-terminal perovskite silicon PV tandem cell last year, and manufacturers are continuing research into the technology. Qcells and the research institute Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin are part of an EU co-funded initiative aimed at accelerating the production of European tandem photovoltaic cells with a focus on silicon perovskite cells.
Van Mierlo is bullish about the prospects for tandem solar cells.
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