 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Engineering |
| Founded | 2006 as Showa Shell Solar |
| Headquarters | Daiba Frontier Bldg, 2-3-2,Daiba,Minato-ku, Tokyo 135-8074 |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Shigeaki Kameda (CEO), Brooks Herring (Director of International Business) |
| Products | Solar panels |
| Parent | Showa Shell Sekiyu |
| Website | www |
Kabushiki Kaisha Solar Frontier is a Japanesephotovoltaic company that develops and manufacturesthin film solar cells usingCIGS technology. It is a fully owned subsidiary ofShowa Shell Sekiyu and located inMinato, Tokyo, Japan. The company was founded in 2006 as Showa Shell Solar, and renamed Solar Frontier in April 2010.[1]
Solar Frontier's parent company Showa Shell Sekiyu had been involved with solar energy since 1978. Production on a commercial scale of crystalline silicon modules for solar cells began in 1983, and research on CIS (copper-indium-selenium) technology began in 1993.[2]
Solar Frontier has manufacturing plants inMiyazaki Prefecture,[3] where it develops and manufactures CIS solar panels, that combineCIGS and CIGSe materials. The company emphasizes the fact that it uses neithercadmium (Cd) norlead (Pb) for its cells.[4]CIGS technology often uses a thin (< 50 nm)CdS buffer layer, and thesemiconductor material of rivalCdTe-technology itself contains the toxiccadmium (Cd), while conventionalcrystalline silicon modules use a lead-containingsolder material.[5]
The company's largest plant is located at Kunitomi and has been operating since its soft opening in February, 2011, with a production capacity of close to 1 GW per year (900 MW).[6]
In April 2015, Solar Frontier completed the construction of its fourth production plant, the 150-megawatt Tohoku Plant, inŌhira,Miyagi Prefecture, which started commercial production in June 2016.[7] The latest CIS line technology includessolar modules withconversion efficiencies of over 15%.[8] When compared to the Kunitomi Plant, the Tohoku Plant requires only two-thirds the investment and manpower per megawatt. It also requires only one-third the time to manufacture a CIS solar panel.[7]
CIS stands for the key ingredientscopper,indium andselenium.CIS technology, however, uses a material that is a mixture of asolid solution of CIS (CuInSe) and CGS (CuGaSe) containing the elementgallium. Depending on the ratio of CIS and CGS the chemical formula for the resulting CIGSsemiconductor material is written as CuInxGa(1-x)Se2, where the value of x can vary from 1 (pure CIS) to 0 (pure CGS). In addition, Solar Frontier's semiconductor also containssulfur. It is atetrahedrallybonded semiconductor, with thechalcopyrite crystal structure. Thebandgap varies continuously withx from about 1.0 eV (for copper indium selenide) to about 1.7 eV (for copper gallium selenide).[9] Solar Frontier underlines the fact that their CIS modules generate a higher energy yield (kilowatt-hours perkilowatt-peak) in real world conditions than conventionalcrystalline silicon modules.[8]