News

25 November 2009

 

MiaSolé starts commercial shipments of CIGS PV modules to multiple customers

MiaSolé, which manufactures copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic modules, said last week that it has started commercial shipments of its CIGS thin-film modules from its production facility Santa Clara, CA, USA.

“We have now shipped modules to 30 customer sites in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and various locations in the USA; we now have commercial projects in the ground, under development and on the drawing board,” said CEO Dr Joseph Laia.

In September 2006 , MiaSolé had promised full production as long ago as 2007. However, the firm suffered delays, leading to founder & former CEO David Pearce that September becoming chairman and being superseded by Laia. More recently, the firm has made significant progress towards commercial manufacturing .

Earlier this month, MiaSolé recruited Kevin Eassa (who formerly led the global manufacturing operations of disc-drive maker Seagate) as VP for manufacturing & operations. Also, at the end of October, the firm received simultaneous certification of its 100W and 107W CIGS PV modules to UL 1703 and IEC 61646 and 61730 standards (claimed to be the first CIGS modules to be certified by Underwriters Laboratories Inc to the three most critical certification standards). Miasolé was also verified by the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in July last year as producing modules with solar energy conversion efficiency of 10.2%.

“With complete UL/IEC certification and long-standing customer partnerships, we are now ramping our factory output and production capacity for 2010,” says Laia. “We are confident our cost structure and manufacturing efficiencies will enable us to compete effectively in the large and growing solar energy market.”

See related item:

MiaSolé’s CIGS PV modules receive UL and IEC certifications

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