After starting experimenting in the early fifties, the PV industry has now been commercially, well established for 30 years. The Poly and Mono Modules have possibly reached their full energy yield potential.
There is not much more to be done to achieve higher outputs with known Silicon based technologies. Some of the PV panel and cell manufacturers are still experimenting with more sophisticated production methods to save half a cent here and there, if possible. Generally this silicon based PV panel technology has reached maturity and has probably hit the ceiling to further optimise higher outputs or to be produced for cheaper prices. The tendency is that prices are actually going slightly up, depending on exchange rate and demand.
A not so new “kid on the block”, CIS PV technology which stands for (Cu Copper, In Indium and Se Selenium), sometimes also called “CIGS” is making some potential noise in the PV industry. This technology started its commercial adventure about 10 years ago and was originally not taken too seriously as the early efficiencies, compared with silicon based technologies, was very low. This has drastically changed in the last couple of years. Due to new chemical advancements and drastically improved production methods, CIS technology produced by SOLAR FRONTIER in Japan, now reaching conversion efficiencies of approximately 14% which now is nearly as high as Poly technologies. More than 20% conversion efficiency was already achieved in test laboratories. Sinetech believes seriously that this will be the future as this technology is just at the beginning of its life cycle and further improvements are imminent. Already now a CIS PV plant can achieve a ±10% higher yield than a silicon based plant due to some of the following advantages listed below.
1. High shading tolerance
2. Best behaviour under low light and low angle irradiation
3. Temperature stability
4. Light Soaking Effect
5. No module grounding, no inverter restrictions
6. Resistance against Ammonia / Salt corrosion (TÜV-Cert.)
7. Free of lead and cadmium (RoHS compliant)
8. Mechanical stability - Framed Module
9. Superior appearance
In the end this is also a commercial advantage since you will achieve:
Higher Yield, Higher Kw/h, Higher and faster financial reward. The CIS Technology offers a much higher temperature stability and has by far superior performance in low light and cloudy condition to Si Technology.