20 July 2011

Semprius awarded incentives to build CPV module pilot plant in North Carolina

The North Carolina Department of Commerce has announced that Semprius Inc of Durham, NC, USA has received an incentives package worth more than $7.88m to construct a pilot plant in Henderson, NC to produce its high-efficiency, low-cost high concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) solar modules. 

The incentives package includes a State of North Carolina Job Development Investment Grant, and grants from the Golden LEAF Foundation, Vance County, the One North Carolina Fund, and the North Carolina Community College System. The plant should provide jobs for 256 people within five years.

The incentives package follows Semprius securing $20m last month in its first tranche of Series C venture fundraising led by Siemens Venture Capital. Semprius will use the incentives package and venture funding to construct the pilot HCPV module production plant, beginning later this month.

The first phase of the plant will be 50,000 square feet and employ 60 people. Semprius plans to expand within the next several years to 150,000 square feet, and it will eventually employ 256 people at the plant. The firm will make an $89.7m capital investment in it, and the plant should draw $120m in investment to the region, it is reckoned.

“Semprius chose to bring their business to North Carolina because our investments in education and job training ensure they can find the work-ready employees they need,” says Governor Bev Perdue.

Semprius’ HCPV modules use high-performance glass lenses to focus sunlight onto very small, highly efficient triple-junction gallium arsenide-based microcells (600µm by 600µm in area and less than 10µm thick). The firm’s triple-junction cells have reached a conversion efficiency of 41.7%, as tested by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), according to Semprius’ staff development engineer Kanchan Ghosal. Optics concentrates the sunlight 1000 times so that just 0.1% of the module area is covered with the microcells. The microcell’s very small size enables use of low-cost optics and electrical interconnects, which remove the heat, eliminating the need for costly thermal management solutions. In addition, Semprius grows its cell structures on top of a release layer so that they can be epitaxially lifted-off as part of its patented micro-transfer printing process, allowing it to reuse the GaAs substrate and hence cut costs dramatically. Semprius also uses an automated manufacturing process, leveraging standard manufacturing equipment and commodity materials, to reduce capital and labor costs.

“Demand for CPV is expected to grow exponentially over the next several years to greater than 6GW by 2020,” says president & CEO Joe Carr. “We’ve designed our modules to be efficient, low-cost and reliable,” he adds. “We believe HCPV solar technology is leading us toward achieving grid parity with fossil-based fuels.”

The Semprius pilot production plant, which is expected to be operational in August 2012, will have an initial capacity of 5MW and be expandable to 35MW, as needed. The pilot line will be used to scale up and optimize production for Semprius’ subsequent large-capacity plants, enabling the firm to capitalize on increasing demand for HCPV systems and offer utility companies and project developers a viable route to grid-parity energy costs.

Tags: Semprius CPV GaAs substrates

Visit: www.semprius.com