The start of production of the South African super-thin solar-panel innovation has been delayed by more than six months due to technical challenges with the equipment at the purpose-built German plant.

Production was expected to start earlier this year, but is now anticipated to kick off in October, says a source close to the project.

The solar panel is the brainchild of University of Johannesburg (UJ) professor Vivian Alberts.

The solar panel he devised is is said to be thinner and cheaper (up to 50%) compared to products currently on the market.

Following Albert's research breakthrough, his employer, UJ, formed the company Photovoltaic Technology Intellectual Property (PTIP) for purposes of commercialisation of the photovoltaic technology.

PTIP - with shareholders UJ and Alberts - in August 2005 entered into a licence agreement with Germany's IFE Thin Film Technology.

Following restructuring IFE became Johanna Solar Technology (JST), the universal successor of IFE.

JST has seven shareholders, including South Africa's State-owned Central Energy Fund, as well as private-sector investors Richmont-Venfin and Anglo Coal.

It was then also this company that completed the E72-million production facility, in Brandenburg, near Berlin, in 2007.

To enable entry into the right markets, JST has since signed a strategic sales and distribution agreement with solar-module manufacturer Aleo AG for the worldwide distribution of its products. Aleo has a 19% interest in JST.

Meanwhile PTIP and a South African based group of investors have started the process of building a local manufacturing facility.

This project is in the process of wrapping of financing, with construction of the anticipated 450 000 panels a year facility expected to take 18 months to complete once this in place.

The solar panels will typically only be available six months after this period.

The South African venture has earmarked a site in Paarl, in the Western Cape, for the local solar panel plant.

It is unlikely that the locally produced panels will have a 100% local content, as certain elements will have to be imported. This include indium, gallium, and initially also the low-iron content glass required for the panels.

Solar panels typically have a 350-micrometre-thick layer of silicon - which is the minimum requirement to absorb sunlight effectively.

However, Alberts' invention is five micro-metres thick, combining several semiconductor materials which are as effective, if not more so, than silicon.

As Alberts' panels use no silicon, costs are dramatically lower.

His panels make use of glass as a substrate, with molybdenum applied as back contact, followed by the core component, being a compound semiconductor comprising five elements - copper, indium, gallium, selenium and sulphide, replacing the silicon - then cadmium sulphide as a buffer layer, followed by an intrinsic zinc oxide layer and, finally, a conductive zinc oxide layer.