Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Solar energy |
Founded | 1996 |
Founder | Tucson Electric |
Headquarters |
Tucson, Arizona, United States |
Products | CIGS solar cells, thin-film PV technology |
Parent | Hanergy |
Website |
www |
Global Solar Energy is a US-based manufacturer of CIGS solar cells, a thin-film based photovoltaic technology, with manufacturing operations in Tucson, Arizona, United States, and Berlin, Germany. In 2013, it was bought by Chinese renewable energy company Hanergy. [1]
The company uses copper indium gallium diselenide to produce CIGS cells, which achieve up to 19.9% efficiency in laboratory samples, [2] and production cells of about 10.5 to 11 percent average efficiency. [3] This type of solar cell is ideal for portable power and is 1.5 to 2X greater in performance than comparable thin film flexible solar materials. [4]
Global Solar Energy opened in 1996, and in 2008 finished another phase of development as it expanded its CIGS production to a new 40 MW facility in Tucson, Arizona and a second 35 MW facility in Berlin, Germany. [5]
The company expects to produce 20 megawatts of the films at the plant in 2008 before ramping up to 40 megawatts of capacity in 2009 and 140 megawatts by 2010. [6] This makes Global Solar the largest full-scale manufacturer of CIGS thin-film photovoltaics.
Global Solar Energy operates the largest CIGS solar electric array in the world, a 750 kW system located at the company's manufacturing facility in Tucson. [7] Part of the energy harnessed by this array is being purchased by the factory itself. [8]
With the advances in conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si) technology in recent years, and the falling cost of the polysilicon feedstock, that followed after a period of severe global shortage, pressure increased on manufacturers of commercial thin-film technologies, including amorphous thin-film silicon (a-Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe), and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), leading to the bankruptcy of several companies. [9] Some current competitors are: