Stealthy AQT offers exclusive look at CIGS solar tech

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Quantum Technology (AQT) came out of stealth today with its copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) technology that it says can be produced at a fraction of the cost and footprint of today's dominant solar technologies.

CEO Michael Bartholomeusz told the Cleantech Group that his company is different from many of the CIGS players that require significant capital in order to fund the design of new technologies and equipment.

AQT plans to use low-cost, high-volume, proven manufacturing techniques from the optical and hard disk industries: reactive sputtering with rapid thermal annealing.

"It's a very repeatable process. Once you get it going, you pump them out like cookies," said Brian Bartholomeusz, vice president of corporate strategy and operations.

See atoms being deposited on a substrate »

AQT is working with Santa Clara-based Intevac to make the equipment, which is expected to arrive in the second quarter of 2010. AQT is now seeking a location for a pilot facility, which is expected to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2010. Michael Bartholomeusz has started talks with potential module partners and future customers, including a resort in Latin America.

The company's plans require quick action, but the Bartholomeusz brothers say the time line is feasible.

"The equipment exists, the materials exist, and the support staff exists," Brian Bartholomeusz said. "There's a huge infrastructure we can take advantage of."

AQT is now seeking funds for the pilot manufacturing facility, which is expected to be between 12 and 20 megawatts. Brian Bartholomeusz said the cost was likely to be between $10 million and $12 million, which he estimated as less than one-half of the price of a similar-capacity facility for other solar technologies. The manufacturing line is expected to produce 300 to 400 cells per hour.

See Intevac's technology for producing CIGS modules »

Intevac announced this week that it's also working with Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based XsunX (see XsunX reboots, claims 75% cost savings with new CIGS solar push).

AQT, which raised about $5 million in funding from a private investor in 2007, plans to have 1 gigawatt of installed production capacity by 2014.

"The net capital requirements are a fraction of what this industry has required to-date," Michael Bartholomeusz said. "That approach is required to compete with the commodity pressures in this industry."

The company's executive team has a background in high volume, low cost high-tech manufacturing of commodity devices and decided to take the same approach in solar.

Tests by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) have shown the potential for 19.9-percent energy-conversion efficiency in CIGS, 20.3 for multicrystalline silicon solar cells, and about 16 percent for cadmium-telluride (CdTe), which thin-film leader First Solar used to reduce manufacturing costs to $0.87 per watt (see Is 5N Plus losing traction with First Solar?).

AQT's team decided that CIGS presented the best chance for low material costs and high efficiency.

"First Solar has demonstrated scalability and cost reduction potential," Brian Bartholomeusz said. "It doesn't matter how fancy your technology is if you can't meet those two challenges."

The Bartholomeusz brothers said they're not in competition with other CIGS players such as Global Solar Energy, Ascent Solar Technologies or HelioVolt. Instead, they see themselves taking advantage of the market silicon solar has already created.

"We don't want to take them on directly," Michael Bartholomeusz said. "We don't want to go head to head with a 100-pound gorilla. Instead, we want to latch on and use that momentum and inertia."

See AQT's CIGS solar cell powering a motor »

AQT wants its cells to be seamlessly incorporated in module makers' existing production systems, so the company plans for its cells to be the same dimensions as silicon cells, using similar glass substrates. Many of AQT's competitors manufacture on flexible substrates, which is something the company hasn't ruled out for the future.

AQT's CIGS cells are expected to have lower efficiencies and lower prices than crystalline silicon cells, which the Bartholomeusz brothers say is their main advantage.

"Efficiency is not the end-all and be-all. We recognize the end-all and be-all is cost," Michael Bartholomeusz said.

In April, NREL tested 48 sample cells produced by AQT's R&D tool, finding a range of 8.5 percent to 10 percent total surface area efficiency, the company says. That uniformity is one of AQT's biggest accomplishments to-date, Brian Bartholomeusz said.

Those samples used copper indium sulfide (CIS), and the company has since sent copper indium gallium sulfide samples to NREL for testing. The company is in R&D with cells of copper indium gallium sulfur selenium, a composition that introduces hydrogen sulfide gas to compensate for selenium depletion. That composition is also being used by Johanna Solar Technology, which was acquired by Germany's Robert Bosch this year (see Aleo solar's shares soar as Bosch makes €46M bid).

AQT's goal is 14 percent efficiency, and the company wants to use traditional CIGS materials. However, company officials said they are open to using any composition that can present the best efficiency-cost makeup, including copper zinc tin sulfide, which has been shown to have 6 percent efficiency.

"If we can make it work, it's as cheap as mud and extremely abundant," Brian Bartholomeusz said.