1st Order of Corning Solar Photovoltaic Glass on Commercial Scale

February 8th, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

Update February 9: Yikes! Apparently, I misread/misunderstood this news when I first read/wrote about it. This is not a transparent PV material—it’s just about the glass used on a PV panel. My apologies. Aside from that, though, the claims below by Corning are still pretty impressive. So, I hope they’re true. I’ve updated a couple parts of the post below to make things more accurate/clear.

Corning photovoltaic glass? I have to admit, I had to dig through our archives to see if we had ever covered this. And, nope, it’s a new one. Corning Incorporated, a “world leader in specialty glass and ceramics,” has created solar photovoltaic glass that it claims is lighter, more efficient, and stronger than traditional thin-film solar module glass. On February 1, it announced the first commercial order of its photovoltaic (PV) glass substrates.

“This milestone order follows three years of development work and extensive customer engagement, resulting in an engineered glass that enables higher efficiency and lighter weight thin-film photovoltaic modules,” the company notes.

In total, Corning says that its new solar technology can “increase current thin-film module efficiency by 20% to 30%.” That’s big!

“Corning’s photovoltaic glass substrates are also 50% stronger with less than half the thickness of the glass commonly used today in thin-film PV modules,” the company notes.

“The glass has high transmission, allowing more sunlight into the semiconductor layer. Corning’s substrates are also high-temperature tolerant. Because the glass can withstand higher temperature deposition, more uniform semiconductor films may be applied, which increases overall conversion efficiency.”

Well, the company has gotten a commercial order now. Where it goes from there, we’ll have to see.

“This is just the beginning,” John Duke, business director for Corning Photovoltaic Glass Technologies, said. But, I guess, he has to think and say that. Nonetheless, it seems to me there’s definitely a strong, sincere feeling of optimism coming from the company (or I’m just having a good morning).

Here’s more from the company:

“We understand the current market challenges for photovoltaics and the focus on delivering cost-effective solar energy solutions. Clearly, energy conversion efficiency is integral to addressing these challenges. Therefore, we are very excited about this initial deployment of Corning’s PV glass substrates and their ability to deliver on such an important need in the advancement of thin-film PV solutions,” said Dr. Gary Calabrese, senior vice president, Corning New Business Development. “The substantial efficiency improvement of our glass technology has been demonstrated in lab and customer trials. Now, this order validates the need for engineered glass to drive higher conversion efficiency and can provide module makers with a competitive advantage.”

Source: Corning

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Tags: corning, corning solar, new solar technology, solar photovoltaic glass, Solar PV, solar pv glass, solar technology

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Smith-Jim/100001240399874 Smith Jim

Zachary,

Please don’t take this as criticism but I think you may have misread something. I know that technology exists for semi transparent PV but I don’t think this is what Corning is talking about. Glass is used in virtually every solar PV module. This does not mean the PV module is transparent in it’s finished form.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Smith-Jim/100001240399874 Smith Jim
  
  The potential for improvement in efficiency is definitely good news.
  - Russell Geisthardt
    
    Just to clarify, the glass is not itself photovoltaic. Rather, it is used in photovoltaics. Some thin-film photovoltaics, especially Cadmium-Telluride, are made on top of glass, and the light has to go through the glass to get to the photovoltaic cell. This means that thinner, more transparent glass allows more light to get to the cell, which allows for more electricity out of the cell (ie, higher efficiency).
- Anonymous
  
  So, headline is, Corning makes clearer glass for PV modules, 20-30% clearer (so allowing 20-30% more ‘efficiency’ for the PV substrate)…than, err, what, any milky crap glass they want to compare it to? I’m sure there’s real tech progress and industrial scaling up of manufacture here, which is good no matter how small, but, as usual, exactly how much is well hidden by the PR
  - Wahlink
    
    I think another key point is that since their glass is thinner and stronger (wonder if they’re using their gorilla glass for this) they can use less glass which obviously saves money. They also claim that they are higher transmission which I take to mean would allow for more light to enter to PV module for conversion to electricity. Some glass has a higher iron composition for instance and while those look nice and clear (not milky white) they transmit less light.
- guest
  
  This.
  
  PV modules use glass, which comes from various suppliers. Corning is now one of those suppliers. Naturally, their glass is better than all the others… according to their PR folks.
  
  That’s about all there is to this announcement.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Yikes! Thanks for the catch. Can’t believe I misunderstood what this was all about. Damn, would have been a pretty amazing tech. updating the post!
  Thanks to the commenters below, too.