Thursday, October 9, 2008
In preparation for commercialization and mass production of its proprietary thin-film solar material dubbed Power Plastic, Konarka Technologies, Inc., has opened a roll-to-roll flexible thin-film solar manufacturing facility, which it claims as the largest in the world. Located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the 250,000-square-foot building was previously the location for Polaroid Corporation's most advanced printing technologies. The plant has the potential capacity to produce 1-gigawatt (GW) of flexible plastic solar modules per year.
The New Bedford facility has been retrofitted to immediately begin initial production of Power Plastic. Using multiple in-line processing stations with precision multi-layer manufacturing processes that are adaptable to a variety of printing and coating technologies, the facility will enable the company to further develop and advance nano-enabled polymer photovoltaic materials that are lightweight, flexible and more versatile than traditional solar materials, said the company.
"This facility has state-of-the-art printing capabilities that are ready for full operation, with the future potential to produce over a gigawatt of flexible plastic solar modules per year," said Howard Berke, executive chairman and co-founder of Konarka, in a statement. "Our technical leadership and innovation in flexible thin film solar, along with this facility's capabilities of producing in excess of 10 million square meters of material per year, will allow us to produce Power Plastic for indoor, portable, outdoor and building integrated applications."
In addition to acquiring the fully automated roll-to-roll manufacturing line, Konarka has also hired the leading technology and process engineering teams from Polaroid, with plans to hire over 100 additional employees as production increases toward capacity over the next two to three years.
The company has secured over $100 million from leading venture capital and private equity funds, as well as $18 million in government agency research grants from the U.S. and Europe. It is also one of the original recipients of the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar American Initiative (SAI) awards in 2007.
The project has been assisted by various Massachusetts departments and quasi-public agencies, including the Massachusetts Governor's Office, the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, MassDevelopment and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's Renewable Energy Trust Fund and Green Energy Fund.
By: DocMemory
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