DuPont to Double Solamet Production to Meet Surging Solar Energy Market Demand

DuPont announced plans to double production capacity for its DuPont Solamet photovoltaic metallization pastes, based on strong, continued growth in the solar energy industry and accelerated demand for new materials that enable higher efficiency photovoltaic cells. As part of DuPont’s efforts to help reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, the capacity increase is consistent with the company’s expectation that its sales of enabling innovations into photovoltaic applications will exceed $1 billion in 2011 and $2 billion by 2014.

“We are seeing extremely strong demand from our customers, while the supply of certain materials in the photovoltaic market has been tight,” said David B. Miller, president – DuPont Electronics & Communications. “This additional capacity expansion demonstrates our commitment to decreasing dependence on fossil fuels by meeting our customers’ needs for materials that increase the efficiency of solar cells and modules. By increasing efficiency, Solamet paste helps reduce overall system costs, thereby making photovoltaic power more competitive with other forms of electricity generation.”

The planned capacity expansion, which will more than double the production capacity for Solamet products for the photovoltaic industry, involves DuPont Microcircuit Materials facilities in Manati, Puerto Rico; Dongguan, China; and Taoyuan, Taiwan. Completion of the work is expected in 2011. This is the second major Solamet expansion in the last two years. In February 2009, DuPont announced it doubled production capacity at its European electronic materials manufacturing facility in Bristol, U.K.

DuPont Solamet photovoltaic metallization pastes are made from silver and other materials, which collect electricity produced by the solar cell and transport it out of the cell. The advances made by DuPont in the field of front- and back-side metallization contacts have resulted in significant efficiency gains for solar cell technology. In 1998, the efficiency of a crystalline silicon solar cell was approximately 10 percent. Today, these cells operate at close to 16 percent for multi-crystalline wafers, and at greater than 18 percent for monocrystalline wafers.