Innovation Pipeline

In a landscape of endless sand and brilliant sunlight, Abu Dhabi has embraced a solar ambition to match its towering skyline and ultra modern cities.

For the past 50 years, United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been known as a powerhouse for oil production. But over the next half century, it wants to become known as a global leader in sustainable energy technologies. Its recent plan and $2 billion investment in renewable solar thin film technology will place the kingdom in the elite of global solar energy producers.

This new city being built near the city of Abu Dhabi in the center of the UAE is part of the Masdar Initiative, a $15 billion government-funded investment program designed to jumpstart the country’s long term plans to benefit economically from the growth of sustainable energy technologies.

What’s new? Recently, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. revealed its plans to expand its investment in solar energy by contracting with Applied Materials to purchase three SunFab thin film lines for producing solar modules. Those three SunFab lines are expected to annually produce modules with a targeted capacity of up to 210 megawatts (MW), or enough energy to power approximately 70,000 homes.

The first phase of the project involves one SunFab line, which will be supplied by Applied Materials and located in Erfurt, Germany. It is expected to start up in the second half of 2009 at which time operational talent will be recruited to help run the future thin film facilities in Abu Dhabi. “Abu Dhabi is not that far away from India and the plan is to use talented Indian workforce in the UAE,” says Mark Pinto, senior vice president and chief technology officer for energy and environmental solutions at Applied Materials. The two thin film facilities will be located in Abu Dhabi and are expected to start up in early 2010.

One of the biggest driving costs for solar energy is the production of solar cells. Applied’s approach is to drive down the value of the numerator in the production equation, which is processing costs divided by the energy per unit area. One way to drive down those costs (the numerator) is in making bigger panels ( 5.7 meters square in size), which is four times larger than the typical industry feature size. The cost of installation and integration of these panels will, hence, also be lower because they won’t be placed on hard to reach rooftops which is common in residential developments.

Location of these plants is a big part of lowering the overall solar and hence energy costs. By establishing the plans in Abu Dabi, the net energy cost of producing and transporting thin film panels is lowered considerably thereby more economical. (Think about the energy costs of packaging and transporting solar from Germany or China to Abu Dabi). Applied officials couldn’t say with certainty at this stage of the project the cost per kilowatt of solar energy produced in Abu Dhabi. But they did say it would be at or lower than the average .15 cents per kilowatt hour costs common in the North American market.

The production facility being located in Abu Dhabi will also benefit from being closer to the source of raw materials like Silane gas used in creating the thin film panels. Unlike other semiconductor production facilities that use vacuum processes, these thin film facilities won’t require the ultra high tech clean rooms required for producing semiconductor components. In terms of the scale of thickness used in building these panels, the layering of films is on the order of nanometers to produce the final panels measuring a few microns in thickness. But the challenges ahead for the thin film facilities are not trivial.

Jürgen Daniel, a senior member of the PARC research staff, says while thin film solar manufacturing is simpler than producing display systems, production can encounter problems like pin holes during the fabrication process. These pin holes in the electrode sandwich can lead to shorting problems in the thin film panels. The pin holes can occur during the nanometer layering process when dust particles or other contaminants become lodged in the electrode sandwich being produced. The Applied Materials team is confident the production facility being first built in Germany and then in Abu Dhabi will give engineers the experience and knowledge necessary to avoid these types of problems.

The Masdar Initiative plan calls for solar power to support a city of 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. In doing so, the Middle East city will lay claim as one of the world’s only zero emission cities. The idea of a zero emission city is hard to fathom anywhere outside of a science fiction novel. But the point is the strides being taken with the Masdar Initiative can be a catalyst that’s experienced across boundaries and cultures. And 1,000 megawatts of thin film solar capacity is nothing to scoff at even though it’s miniscule by comparison to the electrical power generated by other sources like fuel burning utilities and nuclear power plants. Lee Bruno