On Friday, HelioVolt Corporation cut the ribbon on its first factory for manufacturing thin film solar energy products.
The 122,400-square-footfacility in Austin, Texas has received LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design) certification by both Austin Energy’s Green Building Program and the U.S. Green Building Council. Specific sustainability initiatives include: efficiency in lighting, energy and water conservation, sustainable materials, indoor environmental quality, design process innovation, and creative water reuse.
"Integrating environmental sustainability, new green jobs and technology innovation, HelioVolt is precisely the type of emerging leader in the global renewable energy industry that this city values," said Austin Mayor Will Wynn. "This home-grown company is hard at work building a better way of harnessing clean electricity from the sun while energizing our local economy at the same time."
The factory marks the first commercial implementation of HelioVolt’s proprietary FASST® reactive transfer printing process for solar thin film production. FASST is designed to bring solar energy to grid-parity by combining lower cost thin film materials with superior manufacturing efficiencies and high quality end products.
FASST delivers copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells exceeding 12% conversion efficiency in a record-setting six minutes. These conversion efficiencies place HelioVolt’s CIGS devices among the highest performing solar thin film products on the market today, the company says. HelioVolt is using FASST to develop both conventional modules and building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products for the global solar energy market.
About HelioVolt
HelioVolt Corporation was founded in 2001 in order to develop and market new technology for applying thin-film photovoltaic coatings to conventional construction materials. The company’s proprietary FASST® process, based on semiconductor printing, was invented by HelioVolt founder Dr. Billy J. Stanbery, an eminent expert within the international PV community in the materials science of CIGS and related compound semiconductors. FASST® is a low-cost, flexible manufacturing process for CIGS synthesis and is protected by both fifteen issued US and foreign national patents and by numerous additional global patents pending.
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