ENN Solar makes supersized thin film on first Applied line in China

Chinese thin film developer ENN Solar Energy said it has started production on China's first thin-film line supplied by Santa Clara, Calif.'s Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT).

ENN said the 60 megawatt-capacity SunFab production line is running just five months after installation of equipment began in Langfang, China.

The machines are producing thin-film silicon photovoltaic solar modules that are 5.7 square-meters—nearly four times larger than traditional modules. ENN General Manager Rick Wan said the panels take advantage of Applied's proprietary tandem-junction technology for energy-conversion efficiencies of more than 8 percent.

By combining the high efficiencies and ultra-large panels, "we're able to deliver modules that dramatically reduce installed cost per watt," Wan said.

ENN plans to increase its installed production capacity to 500 MW by 2011. The company's R&D teams in Beijing and Silicon Valley are working to improve the technology and product design so that ENN can improve the energy conversion rate to 12 percent in the next two-to-three years.

ENN Solar Energy is now a member of the ENN Group, but ENN first spun out of natural gas company XinAo Group in November 2007 when XinAo entered the solar market by buying production equipment from Applied Materials.

A year later, ENN secured a $136 million investment from Hebei, China-based International Finance Corp. (IFC) to build the 60 MW thin-film production line. The funding was $15 million in equity, a $45 million loan from IFC, and $76 million in other loans coordinated by IFC (see IFC invests $136M in Chinese thin-film silicon maker).

Commercial production was slated for the second quarter of 2009, but ENN has since said it will be in commercial production this month.

Manufacturers such as Applied Materials and Switzerland's Oerlikon Solar (VTX: OERL.VX) sell turn-key production lines for amorphous thin-film silicon panels that mimic the low-cost mass production that fueled the growth of the semiconductor industry (see Oerlikon aims to streamline thin-film solar).

In October, Menlo Park, Calif.-based Signet Solar became the first company to enter volume production on a thin-film line by Applied (see Applied thin-film line reaches commercial production).

Applied has established a SunFab solar module reliability testing facility in Xi'an, China, in 2008.

The value of manufacturing equipment purchased by thin-film photovoltaic and organic PV firms is projected to grow from $450 million in 2008 to $4.8 billion in 2015, according to a report from research firm NanoMarkets.

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