TEL Solar is a provider of thin-film silicon PV module production equipment, end-to-end fabrication lines, process technology and services, for the automated mass-production of such modules.
TEL Solar is currently offering equipment that produce PV panels that are 1.4 square meters in size, have a module efficiency of 10.8%, and a module production cost of US$0.50/watt. in 2012, TEL Solar emphasized that it had doubled the annual output of its standard manufacturing line and reduced the expected cost of ownership by over 50% over the past three years. These improvements were seen to put TEL Solars customers in a position to offer panels at a price that enable solar energy to be sold at prices comparable to retail electricity rates in regions such as Southern Europe and California.
TEL Solars possesses a fully automated thin-film solar module manufacturing lines (ThinFab 140) with an annual production capacity of 140 MW. The company highlights three key components of it in the latest generation production line:
In addition, TEL Solar claimed to be the only supplier of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) technology with haze on demand. This proprietary effect is seen to enable the trapping of light in the photovoltaic thin-film, maximizing conversion efficiency, thus directly enhancing the performance of its solar module and reducing its cost per watt-peak.
The company claimed its 1.4-m2 substrate to be the leading format for equipping silicon thin-film module production facilities, and that it became an industry standard through numerous installations. TEL Solar emphasized that the substrate it used, was the only one available for wide-scale implementations, and that its format had further advantages over other, larger substrates, including higher efficiency, lower cost of ownership per watt, lower shipment costs, and ease of installation.
The company stated that its amorphous/microcrystalline design enables module performance by capturing up to 50% more sunlight than conventional thin film silicon PV modules. The micromorph stacked-cell concept was pioneered and patented at the Institute of Microtechnology (IMT) of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and licensed to TEL Solar in 2003. A new world record PV module based on the micromorph concept with 12.24% efficiency was independently certified in July 2014.3
TEL Solar offers its customers a complete manufacturing solution for thin film silicon, including the PECVD equipment for depositing the silicon layers, the LPCVD equipment to deposit thin film zinc oxide on the front and back of the silicon layers, the advanced laser systems to scribe cell lines and the equipment to encapsulate the active layers to form the finished module.
"TEL Announces Acquisition of Oerlikon Solar". Tokyo Electron. 3 March 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2015. http://www.tel.com/news/2012/0303_001.htm ↩
"New Record-Breaking PV Module Efficiency has been achieved". TEL Solar Website. TEL Solar. 9 July 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2015. http://www.solar.tel.com/media/press-releases/detail/news/2014/07/09/new-record-breaking-pv-module-efficiency-has-been-achieved/ ↩