Commercialization of multijunction amorphous silicon modules

Solarex, a Business Unit of Amoco/Enron Solar, is constructing a plant in James City County, VA that will have the capacity to produce 10 MW/yr of multijunction amorphous silicon PV modules. The plant is scheduled to start commercial production of 8.6 ft² tandem modules in early 1997. The tandem structure utilizes a front p-i-n junction of amorphous silicon and a rear p-i-n junction containing amorphous silicon-germanium alloys. The manufacturing process utilizes plasma-enhanced CVD of the amorphous silicon alloys and computerized laser scribing combined with machine vision to fabricate monolithic thin-film PV modules. These modules are protected with a glass-EVA-glass encapsulation and pass all accelerated environmental tests. The stabilized conversion efficiencies of the tandem modules are projected to be about 8% based on results obtained with 4 ft² prototype modules produced on a pilot line. The principle product will be a monolithic module (~26"×48") that is expected to be widely used in grid-tied applications such as PV roofing and solar farms