Saint-Gobain and Hyundai Heavy Industries to build
100MW CIGS thin-film plant
Oct 22, 2010 - Mark
Osborne - pv-tech.org
A new joint venture has been formed between Saint-Gobain
and Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) to build and operate
a 100MW CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, selenide)
thin-film module plant in Korea, dubbed Fab 3. The
JV will be called Hyundai Avancis. The new partners
said the plant would be operational in the second
quarter of 2012, with an initial investment of US$196.9
million.
Having acquired the outstanding 50% stake in Avancis
from Shell in August 2009, Saint-Gobain has already
announced a new 100MW CIGS plant to be built in Torgau,
Germany. This plant will become operational a quarter
before the plant in Korea. The new JV fab will base
its design on this new updated line, according to
Saint-Gobain.
"With this investment, Saint-Gobain significantly
accelerates its growth on the solar market, by banking
on a competitive and innovative technology,” commented
Pierre-Andre de Chalendar, chairman and CEO of Compagnie
de Saint-Gobain.
As a global glass manufacture, Saint-Gobain has
four float-glass lines and several processing units
for the automotive and building sectors based in
Korea.
Keh-Sik Min, chairman of Hyundai Heavy Industries,
said, "By expanding into the high-efficiency
CIGS PV market, under a joint-venture with Saint-Gobain,
HHI is on track with its plan to become a global
supplier in the renewable energy sector via innovation
and diversification. Above all, HHI will be one step
closer to achieving the global commitment of pursuing
an era of clean energy. We believe that we will soon
fulfil these commitments that will provide a strong
foundation for our future generations."
Saint-Gobain claims its Avancis CIGS technology
achieves above 12% efficiencies in production and
up to 20% in the laboratory.
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