ENN Solar shows off tandem junction tech at Intersolar

Chinese thin-film developer ENN Solar Energy is showing off its new, silicon thin-film solar products with tandem junction technology today for the first time in North America.

The company claims the power output per installed watt is higher than conventional photovoltaic cells. The announcement was made in conjunction with the Intersolar North America 2009 convention, taking place this week in San Francisco, Calif.

ENN Solar Energy said the supersized modules can be used for applications ranging from utility-scale ground mounted solar parks to integrated roof or facade solutions, large rooftop installations or solar-covered carports and shade structures.

With its tandem junction technology, two layers of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon are applied to the glass substrate. The layer of amorphous silicon soaks up short-wave light, while the other layer takes in long-wave light. The PV products, in turn, convert solar energy into electricity in less than ideal weather conditions, according to the company.

ENN Solar also claims the energy payback time of its modules is half of that for crystalline silicon ones. The company said it plans to reach 60-megawatt production capacity of its modules by the year’s end.

ENN Solar, which has North American headquarters in San Jose, Calif., is a subsidiary of ENN Group, China’s largest private clean energy provider, which has nearly $3 billion in revenue. ENN first spun out of natural gas company XinAo Group in November 2007 when XinAo entered the solar market by buying production equipment from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials.

In 2008, Hebei, China-based International Finance Corp. invested $136 million in ENN Solar Group for it to build its first thin-film amorphous silicon production line (see IFC invests $136M in Chinese thin-film silicon maker).

ENN Solar first unveiled its new high-efficiency solar products to the European market in May at the Intersolar conference in Munich. The company said manufacturing was ramped up in five months.

"We constantly are improving the efficiency of the modules, while reducing production costs,” said ENN Solar’s General Manager Rick Wan, in a news release. “Our goal is to dramatically increase the performance of the solar modules, while cutting their cost by at least 30 percent compared to current price levels. We are working on reaching 10 percent stabilized conversion efficiency in the next two years."

ENN Solar’s PV modules are produced on an Applied Materials-supplied SunFab production line, which meets International Electrotechnical Commission requirements (see ENN Solar makes supersized thin film on first Applied line in China).

Cleantech developments making news in the past 24 hours

• AES raises $1.58B with China Investment
• Patently unobvious
• Dow’s reverse osmosis tech picked for Australian desal plant
• Biogas plant moves forward in Chennai

View the last week of cleantech developments here | Subscribe to full feed