Avancis’ second factory is the prototype of a generation of plants with which the company seeks to advance the industrialisation of its cutting edge production process. “Our CIS thin-film technology is a relatively new manufacturing method which is already quite successful and still has plenty of additional potential to reduce costs and improve the conversion efficiency”, said Hartmut Fischer, the company’s CEO. “The 100-megawatt factory being established here is the starting shot for the industrial mass-production of our solar modules.”
Production at Plant 2 is already scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2012 and it will have an output of 850,000 solar modules annually. The company estimates that the new facility will create 200 direct jobs.
“Our own planning team designed the factory according to the most demanding of requirements and it meets state-of-the-art standards. It is the prototype for additional factories we will build worldwide with our parent company, Saint-Gobain”, added Fischer.
Avancis is consistently putting this expansion strategy into practice. Together with the internationally successful corporation Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), the company has established a joint venture to produce CIS thin-film modules in South Korea. Construction work on a third factory based on the experience gained in developing Plant 2 is already scheduled to begin at the beginning of next year. It will also have an annual production capacity of 100 MWp.
Siemens, Shell and Saint-Gobain are some of the big names that helped cultivate the technology now available from Avancis while it was still in its infancy. The successes achieved in the field of PV are due in large part to their efforts. For example, as a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain since autumn 2009, Avancis benefits from its many years of expertise when it comes to coating and heat treating glass (both core competencies of this leading global supplier of construction and automotive glass).
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