EPV SOLAR Germany Begins Thin-Film Module Production in Senftenberg, Germany

EPV SOLAR Germany GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of US-based EPV SOLAR, Inc., a thin-film solar module manufacturer and photovoltaic systems provider headquartered in New Jersey, USA, announced today that the first amorphous silicon thin-film modules have been produced at EPV SOLAR Germany’s Senftenberg factory.

Commenting on the rapid achievement of this milestone—from ground-breaking to first module produced in less than one year—Scott Massie, EPV SOLAR’s CEO, stated: “While other companies are struggling to produce their first modules, EPV SOLAR has opened two factories totaling 50 MW in capacity in the last two months. I am very proud of our personnel who have demonstrated tremendous dedication and have worked tirelessly to ramp our production lines quickly in order to meet growing market demand.”

Commercial volumes of thin-film solar modules produced at the Senftenberg facility will be available for sale in January of 2009. The new facility, located in the Brandenburg region of eastern Germany, has a capacity of 30 MW, approximately half a million 55-watt modules per year. The modules produced at this facility will be used in large solar parks and photovoltaic arrays in Germany and southern Europe. Throughout the last several weeks, the facility has performed test runs and continued to hire and train its new employees. The facility’s engineers, maintenance technicians, and supervisors have recently returned from their training at EPV SOLAR’s Robbinsville, New Jersey, facility. Mr. Massie extended his appreciation to Juergen Doering and the Aktiengesellschaft für Erneuerbare Energien (AEE) team, stating, “AEE has done an outstanding job and has been instrumental in helping us take this project from concept to reality.”

Thin film is rapidly gaining worldwide recognition as an economical, environmentally benign, and readily mass-produced alternative to traditional crystalline silicon modules. In addition, because the modules’ semiconductor layer is created through the deposition of silane gas rather than through silicon wafers, the manufacture of the modules is not impacted by silicon shortages. Franz Kemper, Managing Director of EPV SOLAR Germany, explains some of thin film’s appeal, “Thin-film modules have the fastest energy payback. After one and a half years, the energy required for the production of a module is recovered through the electricity that the module produces.”