XsunX Inc of Aliso Viejo,CA,USA,which is developing hybrid copper indium gallium(di)selenide thin-film(CIGS)photovoltaic(TFPV)cell technologies and'CIGSolar'manufacturing processes,is expanding its technology development and marketing operations into a new facility in Irvine,CA.The firm has also received equity financing through the public equity firm Ironridge Global IV Ltd,an institutional investor that assists small-cap public companies in the energy sector with financing operations and expansion.
XsunX has been working to complete the assembly of its CIGSolar TFPV cell manufacturing system and establish a marketing facility to provide a hands-on demonstration environment to customers.With the aid of the Ironridge investment,XsunX has settled about$500,000 in accounts payable,primarily associated with the assembly of its CIGSolar thermal evaporation technology,in exchange for unregistered shares of common stock.The transaction has substantially reduced XsunX's liabilities and enables it to expedite completion of its baseline CIGSolar co-evaporation system and to establish its technology marketing and demonstration facility.
"Over the last couple of years the solar industry has experienced significant change,driven primarily through extraordinary pricing reductions to silicon which have driven some companies out of business and left others operating on razor-thin margins,"says XsunX's CEO Tom Djokovich."In offering a solution to this problem we have focused our efforts on the belief that high-performance CIGS solar cells could provide further price reductions and restore operating margins,"he adds."Our target customers agree with this thinking and we have a number of them anxious to participate in our first demonstrations."
The firm's technology,of which samples were certified delivering 15.91%average efficiency in testing conducted by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory(NREL),utilizes multi-small-area thermal co-evaporation for rapid deposition of final-sized cells to better control the complex management of the CIGS layer deposition process.
Unlike other CIGS manufacturing technology,the method begins and ends using individual thin stainless-steel substrates sized to match silicon cells so that they can be used as an alternative to silicon cells in existing module assembly lines,says XsunX.In addition to providing for a smaller and more precise deposition environment,the CIGSolar process also helps to avoid performance losses experienced when cells are either cut from rolls of manufactured CIGS material or mismatched electrically in monolithic assemblies,the firm adds.
