PHOTOVOLTAICS GE THIN-FILM FAB PV modules made in the shadowof the Rockies This building in Aurora, Last May, Mark Little, General Electric’s Global Research Director, said that Colorado, will soon house GE’s new 400 MW thin- in five years he sees solar power as being cheaper than fossil fuels. The US- film PV manufacturing based international company with huge energy and infrastructure divisions facility. Photo: Chris Meehan starts a new engagement in PV panel production with the building of a 400 MW CdTe module manufacturing plant in Colorado. After completion later this year, the facility will be the biggest thin-film PV fab in the country. he empty warehouse just off Interstate 70 in manufacturing facility in Indiana, which is slated to Aurora, CO, doesn’t look like much at present. begin construction this year. TIn fact, peering through its tinted windows PV manufacturing facilities have dotted the US, under an azure winter sky, one notices dirt floors and with states including Arizona, California, Ohio and nearby construction trailers. They are the only hints Oregon all housing PV manufacturing facilities that that a very different future is in store for this vacant produce more than 100 MW annually. But this is the building, this empty parking lot. It will soon see deliv­ first such facility for Colorado. “I think that it’s one ery of the first pieces of the manufacturing equipment thing to be able to have a start­up business ramp up that will make it home to the largest thin­film PV man­ operations in Colorado, but to have one of the world’s ufacturing plant in the US, when it’s completed – in largest businesses reinforce that it wants to get into about a year. photovoltaics and choose Colorado as its base is a General Electric (GE) chose the community – big vote of confidence in the state,” says Colorado which is part of the Denver­Aurora­Boulder metro­ Solar Energy Industries Association (COSEIA) politan area with a population of about 3 million – Executive Director Neal Lurie. “It sends a clear mes­ to house its first commercial thin­film PV manufac­ sage that Colorado is an attractive place for solar turing facility, and it’s no small bet on the technolo­ businesses to invest and that our high­calibre work­ gy. Including its purchase of PrimeStar Solar and the force is a real competitive advantage.” new facility, GE is investing about US$ 600 million GE chose the location after a nationwide search. in thin­film cadmium telluride (CdTe) PV. When com­ It also considered Arizona, New York and some other pleted and operational, the new facility will employ locations. “The team in Arizona was incredibly effec­ about 355 people and produce 400 MW of PV mod­ tive in working with us, trying to help us drive our de­ ules annually. That’s larger than either of First cision,” says Matt Guyette, Marketing and Strategy Solar’s manufacturing facilities in the US. It will also Leader of GE Wind and Solar. “But there are a lot of likely start producing modules on a commercial different factors that really made Colorado the prime scale faster than Abound Solar’s planned 640 MW location for our first plant. Mainly what we looked at 118 Sun & Wind Energy 3/2012 was speed to market,” Guyette asserts. The modules Guyette asserts. While he will not specify how much that will be made at the plant were developed in near­ the GE modules will cost on a per watt basis, he con­ by Arvada at PrimeStar Solar. GE first invested in the tends, “Our goal is you need to be competitive on a company as a centre of excellence in 2007 and pur­ levelised cost of electricity basis with all the technol­ chased it outright in 2011. ogies out there.” “Leveraging the skill set of our resources there Maybe the company has good reason to be so really allowed us to get our plant up and running positive because it plans to enter the thin­film market faster . We have a key leadership team there and a with modules at about the same efficiency level as technology team. And having Aurora, which is only those produced in First Solar plants. That competitor about 30 minutes away, is really going to help us le­ has just reached a milestone of 14.4 % conversion ef­ verage that skill set and focus on the speed of getting ficiency across a whole thin­film module. GE isn’t far this plant up and running,” Guyette explains. Other behind and expects to start production at the new fa­ Matt Guyette, Marketing and factors that influenced GE included the area, the work­ cility with modules that are at least 14 % efficient. Strategy Leader of GE Wind and force, Colorado’s universities and having the National The company already has bigger plans for the Solar Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) close by. technology. It sees the plant as the first phase of a Photo: GE multi­GW build out. The first plant is being designed Subsidies coming only from Aurora so that the process could be repeated elsewhere in the US and internationally. Guyette: “The goal would The facility is not being subsidised by the federal be to leverage that technology to be able to build any­ government, but will receive subsidies of up to about where in the world that made sense.” 3 % of its US$ 300 million investment – mainly from GE actually is following a double strategy with re­ Aurora, for construction costs. “The decision made gard to thin­film, aimed at becoming a brand name in was based on the economics of the technology and both the CIGS and the CdTe sector. Since 2010, the com­ the cost position. So there was no federal subsidy pany has installed thousands of CIGS modules manu­ driving this,” Guyette says. GE’s research teams in factured by Showa Shell Sekiyu’s business unit Solar Colorado, Munich, Shanghai, Bangalore and New Frontier in Japan. At the same time, GE was increasing York made the technology economically feasible. its interest in the NREL/PrimeStar Solar technology. “The accumulative research is now ready for its com­ mercial debut.” Colorado as renewable energy hub GE is confident that the modules to be produced at the new facility will be cost­competitive with other GE’s new facility builds on a history of renewable PV technologies. In fact, the company abandoned its energy research in Colorado stretching back to the silicon­based technology over a year ago in favour of birth of NREL in the late 1970’s. More recently it has thin­film PV. Despite continued price drops in silicon attracted a number of different businesses involved PV, the company continues to believe in the technol­ in modern renewable energy, with Vestas housing a ogy. “We made the decisions expecting the current manufacturing facility in Pueblo and SMA America lo­ very competitive environment,” Guyette says. “We cating a PV inverter manufacturing facility in Denver. wouldn’t have built this factory without having a tech­ “The previous administration really focused on ener­ nology path, a cost path that we thought could com­ gy economy. We’re building on that and looking at the pete in the marketplace with all technologies,” entire energy sector,” says Governor’s Energy Office SUNLIGHT + PERFECTENERGY = YOU SMILE! The ArT of AbsoluTe PerfecTion Your reliable business partner for high-quality solar modules. www.perfectenergy-gmbh.de Perfectenergy Gmbh | Tannenweg 8-10 | D-53757 sankt Augustin PHOTOVOLTAICS GE THIN-FILM FAB “Double strategy” in thin film technology: this 1 MW PV power plant in Aschenheim, Germany, is equipped with GE CIGS modules, manufactured by partner Solar Frontier in Japan. Photo: Gehrlicher Solar Director Tanuj “TJ” Deora. GE’s PrimeStar expansion Mexico via a Texas port in Houston and to Canada and the thin­film manufacturing joins a cluster that through a network of Interstate highways and rail­ was already populated by companies like Abound ways, Deora says. But GE may not have to ship so far Solar and Ascent Solar. from home. After all, Colorado has one of the US’s Abound Solar began producing CdTe modules in highest renewable energy standard requirements Longmont, 80 km north of Denver in 2009. The com­ and could benefit from more locally produced solar pany plans to expand its capacity there from the cur­ projects. rent 65 MW/a to 200 MW/a by the end of the year. GE is already testing the technology in its new About Abound Solar, Guyette says, “They’ve had backyard, and elsewhere. In addition to Colorado, it’s some good progress and I look to them to be both a also testing in Phoenix, Arizona, the Middle East, friendly competitor, and at the same time, they help Germany, and in upstate New York, according to drive some of the industry things that all solar manu­ Guyette. “We have a number of locations where we’re facturers are going to push.” leveraging the production off the pilot line to test dif­ ferent environmental conditions around the world.” Plant to be copied “wherever it Once the facility starts producing in volume, GE will makes sense” quickly ramp up the size of projects to be equipped with the modules. Small facilities will start at 1 to COSEIA’s representative Lurie hopes that GE’s deci­ 2 MW. “Then we’re looking at very large­scale oppor­ sion will attract more solar companies to Colorado. tunities, signi ficantly larger than that,” Guyette says. “There’s no question that we have a solar manufac­ The company is close to naming some of those sites, turing cluster here,” he asserts.