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9.04.2010

Solar Roofing News

Global Solar Energy Rolls Out the Most Powerful Flexible Module to Roofing Industry; The PowerFLEX(TM) BIPV Revolutionizes Solar Roofing; Large, 300 Watt Module Offers Flexible, Lightweight and Easy-to-Install Design



Business Wire
August 31, 2010
Global Solar Energy, Inc. , a leading manufacturer of high-efficiency Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) solar material, today unveiled its flexible building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) module: the PowerFLEX(TM) BIPV. Specially designed for commercial and industrial rooftops, PowerFLEX BIPV modules can deliver more power per rooftop than any other solar solution. With the PowerFLEX BIPV module, rooftops can quickly and cost effectively start generating clean energy.

Global Solar will showcase its PowerFLEX BIPV at the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (25th EU PVSEC) / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-5), September 6-9 in Valencia, Spain.

With 12.6 percent aperture efficiency, Global Solar PowerFLEX BIPV delivers the highest efficiency in the flexible module industry. The module has a large format (5.75m x 0.5m) and a high power density (300W) enabling it to outperform other flexible solar roofing solutions currently on the market, including 50 percent more energy and power than the current amorphous silicon standard.

Global Solar's PowerFLEX BIPV module directly addresses the biggest concerns posed by the roofing industry regarding solar integration. It is lightweight and can be applied directly to a roofing surface, requiring no mounting hardware, no roof penetrations, and creates no additional wind load. Designed especially for roofs, Global Solar's PowerFLEX BIPV maintains the integrity and aesthetics of a building structure. Because of its large format and high power density, Global Solar's PowerFLEX BIPV will also lower installation and balance of system (BOS) costs.

Although traditional glass solar modules are too heavy for many commercial applications, they have been one of the few options available to the building industry for solar energy generation. Unlike conventional glass modules, which are heavy, rigid and typically installed at an angle on racks, PowerFLEX BIPV modules are lightweight and flexible, and installed flat directly on the roofing surface. This allows the modules to cover a greater amount of rooftop space that, depending on the location of the building, can equate to 50-100 percent more power and energy per rooftop than a tilted solar array. This advantage is particularly acute at higher latitudes.

"At Global Solar, we recognized that the building industry has not been able to fully optimize the real estate on the rooftop with solar solutions currently available," said Dr. Jeff Britt, CEO of Global Solar Energy. "We worked closely with roofing professionals when we designed the PowerFLEX BIPV, and their experience mattered to us. Leveraging their input, we now offer a high-powered module that will create the most powerful rooftops in the world."

Industry research is showing that the BIPV market is heating up. Lux Research reported that by 2013 the BIPV market will reach $5.7 billion. Solutions that will succeed are ones that meet the power, design and cost requirements set by the building and roofing industries.

About Global Solar Energy
Since its founding in 1996, Global Solar has emerged as the leader in flexible Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) thin film solar cell technology. CIGS thin film technology is lightweight and highly efficient. Global Solar's thin film solar cells are incorporated into a variety of applications ranging from lightweight portable solar chargers, traditional glass solar modules, and now building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products and designs.

Global Solar manufactures CIGS cells in two full scale facilities in Tucson, Arizona, USA and in Berlin, Germany, and distributes worldwide.

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Business Wire


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NSF-FUNDED PROJECT AIMS TO GRAB MORE SUN FOR SOLAR CELLS



States News Service
States News Service
August 30, 2010

The following information was released by the University of Oregon:

Researchers from three institutions are uniting under a three-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to boost the juice of solar cells.

Under the project researchers will seek to design new semiconductor structures that "will overcome the current limit on efficiency of most solar cells in which each light particle captured by the sun only provides one electron of electrical current," said Stephen Kevan, head of physics at the University of Oregon and the project's principle investigator. "If our efforts succeed, we will significantly improve solar cell efficiency using environmentally benign materials."

The grant, which begins Sept. 1, comes from the NSF's Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences as part of its Solar Energy Initiative.

Geraldine Richmond, professor of chemistry at the UO, and Malgorzata Peszynsk, professor of mathematics at Oregon State University, are co-principal investigators on the project. An expert in the growth of thin films, Angus Rockett, associate head of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also will have an important role in the project.

Multiple laboratories at the UO, OSU and Illinois will be used in device design, development and optimization, including the Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR), which is located in the UO's underground Lokey Laboratories. "We are exploring promising combinations of semiconducting materials with appropriate band alignment and growth characteristics to promote more efficient impact ionization," Kevan said.

The goal is to design nanostructured semiconducting materials that convert and channel sunlight into useful electrical energy rather than into waste heat. The principle behind the new process, called heterojunction-assisted impact ionization, is that shorter wavelength photons will be absorbed to capture a higher ratio of electrons, providing for higher electrical currents and a reduction of energy loss.

Three additional collaborators in the project are: Dave Cohen, professor of physics at the UO, who, like Rockett, has extensive experience working on photovoltaic materials including thin films; Janet Tate, a solid-state physicist at OSU with expertise in growing thin-film electronic and optical materials; and Guenter Schneider is a solid-state theorist at OSU who will work closely with Peszynska to model potential new devices and predict new target structures.

Kevan, Cohen, Richmond and Tate also are member faculty of the Oregon Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies Center (Oregon BEST), a nonprofit organization established by the Oregon Legislature to commercialize and transform sustainable built environment and renewable energy research into on-the-ground products, services and jobs. In 2009, Oregon BEST funding established the Photovoltaics Characterization Laboratory, a shared user facility that is part of the Support Network for Research and Innovation in Solar Energy (SuNRISE), a collaborative solar energy laboratory based at the UO.



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