Solar

Komax Solar wants to do its part in helping to achieve a breakthrough for solar power. Reaching this goal will require continual improvements in the cost and efficiency of solar modules plus constant advances in production processes. By providing the sector’s leading technologies, we are helping the solar industry on its way to grid parity and beyond.

We are the technology leader and listen carefully to our customers in order to develop outstanding innovative solutions. Our customers rely on our having and meeting high quality standards in all aspects of our business. As a specialist, we supply the preferred production solutions for the world’s most successful solar modules.

We are fully aware that the success of a solar module depends on its manner of production. And we provide the best solutions for this task. We have suitable personnel and the necessary know-how. “We have the way to make it.”

With some 260 employees worldwide, Komax Solar possesses extensive processing expertise in the manufacture of solar modules, in both the crystalline and the thin film segment. We do more than constantly optimize our processes; we also invent new ones. This growing expertise is part of our company assets.

Our successful knowledge and our vast experience allow us to arrange and provide optimum assembly processes. We use leading technologies to ensure that our customers receive ultra-precise and cost-effective solutions of excellent quality.

Komax Solar is one of the top companies worldwide in the segment of stringers and contacting machines. Our longstanding experience in photovoltaics makes Komax a strong and reliable partner for the development and industrial optimization of solar energy processes.

The way to make it work

Solar power installations are steadily improving in terms of performance and cost effectiveness. They supplement and support our power supply or reliably deliver electricity to the public in remote regions. The manual soldering of cells into strings and the myriad manual steps entailed in making a module have given way to industrial processes that are constantly improving.

Sunlight falling on a solar cell generates a charge carrier in the solar cell. If the solar cell is connected to an electric circuit, the electrical energy can be used as current or to be more specific, as direct current.

Solar cells are categorized according to their semiconductor material as cells from monocrystalline or polycrystalline silicon and as thin film cells based on silicon or alternative materials. The electrically interconnected solar cells are encapsulated in a solar module, as are the thin film cells. The cells are thus protected from the elements, and the module can be installed as a prefab component on roofs or in facades.

Crystalline PV modules are made up of a number of square monocrystalline or multicrystalline solar cells typically 156 mm by 156 mm in size. The monocrystalline cells are about 160 µm thick and are wire-sawn in diameters of 6 inches from a single crystal grown over the course of many hours. This neutral silicon is subsequently transformed in various deposition and application processes into a light-sensitive semiconductor capable of converting photons into an (electron) current. The monocrystalline cells are somewhat more efficient than multicrystalline cells sawn from a multicrystalline cast ingot, generally achieving 22 percent efficiency in series production. Bus bars are then screen-printed on the front of both types of solar cells.

Typically, three ribbons are then soldered on both kinds of cells so the voltages add up (similar to batteries connected in a series). A single module contains up to 60 interconnected cells, which typically generate values of 60 Volts of open circuit voltage and short-circuit currents of more than 5A. These cells soldered on Komax machines then go to a layup machine, also from Komax, where they are laid on a 3 mm thick sheet of glass and sealed by a laminator to make them impervious to moisture. The multicrystalline cells are cheaper to produce and are still the leading product on the market despite efficiencies of 13 to 16 percent.

Thin film technology is much more recent. Three very different manufacturing techniques have emerged for its manufacture: cadmium telluride (CdTe) modules, amorphous and micromorphous silicon modules, and copper indium gallium selenide (CIS/GIS) modules. The fight for supremacy is still underway. No one technology has yet won out on the market.

Unlike the crystalline PV modules, which are discretely assembled from individual cells, the thin film module is made directly on a sheet of glass, e.g. one square meter in size, in a plasma-enhanced vapor deposition process. These modules are created in automated processes involving laser structuring and further chemical and physical procedures. The cells in a thin film module no longer have to be interconnected, they already are. The module is made up of about 50 strips one centimeter in width lined up in rows and separated by laser structuring. Depending on the technology involved, the module may then have to go to Komax machines for film edge removal, for contacting of the first and last cell, for marriage to a second sheet of glass and finally, for sealing on the laminator.