Applied Materials,Inc. is an American corporation that supplies equipment,services and software for the manufacture of semiconductor chips for electronics,flat panel displays for computers,smartphones,televisions,and solar products. The company also supplies equipment to produce coatings for flexible electronics,packaging and other applications. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara,California,and is the second largest supplier of semiconductor equipment in the world based on revenue behind ASML of Netherlands.
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect,a phenomenon studied in physics,photochemistry,and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially used for electricity generation and as photosensors.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US specializes in the research and development of renewable energy,energy efficiency,energy systems integration,and sustainable transportation. NREL is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Department of Energy and operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy,a joint venture between MRIGlobal and Battelle. Located in Golden,Colorado,NREL is home to the National Center for Photovoltaics,the National Bioenergy Center,and the National Wind Technology Center.
Hanwha Solutions Corporation is a multinational energy services,petrochemical,and real estate development company headquartered in Seoul,South Korea. The company is part of the Hanwha Group,a large South Korean business conglomerate. Founded in 1965 as Hanwha Chemical,the company was rebranded as Hanwha Solutions in January 2020 when Hanwha Chemical merged with Hanwha Q Cells &Advanced Materials,which itself was formed out of a 2018 merger. The company added the Hanwha Galleria and Hanwha City Development real estate companies to its portfolio in April 2021. The Galleria division and the Advanced Materials division were spun off. The Electronic Materials business,which had remained part of the Advanced Materials division,was also transferred to a subsidiary of the company.
MiaSolé is an American solar energy company selling copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic products. MiaSolé's manufacturing process lays CIGS on a flexible stainless steel substrate. MiaSoléproduces all layers of photovoltaic material in a continuous sputtering process.
Yingli,formally Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited -. Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited,known as "Yingli Solar," is a solar panel manufacturer. Yingli Green Energy's manufacturing covers the photovoltaic value chain from ingot casting and wafering through solar cell production and solar panel assembly. Yingli's photovoltaic module capacity is 30 GWs.
Bosch Solar Energy AG was a German solar wafer and solar cell manufacturer,based in Erfurt,which specialized in crystalline silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) products,as well as thin-film modules using amorphous silicon and CIGS absorber materials. The company consisted of various divisions for silicon,wafers,solar cells and modules,research and production facilities in Germany and France and plans were made to open a production line in Malaysia. It has been listed on the German stock exchange since 30 September 2005 and on 19 December 2005 its shares were admitted to the TecDAX. The enterprise was founded in 1997 as ErSol Solarstrom GmbH &Co. KG.
Global Solar Energy is a US-based manufacturer of CIGS solar cells,a thin-film based photovoltaic technology,with manufacturing operations in Tucson,Arizona,United States,and Berlin,Germany. In 2013,it was bought by Chinese renewable energy company Hanergy.
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaics is a photovoltaic (PV) technology based on the use of cadmium telluride in a thin semiconductor layer designed to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity. Cadmium telluride PV is the only thin film technology with lower costs than conventional solar cells made of crystalline silicon in multi-kilowatt systems.
Thin-film solar cells are made by depositing one or more thin layers of photovoltaic material onto a substrate,such as glass,plastic or metal. Thin-film solar cells are typically a few nanometers (nm) to a few microns (µm) thick–much thinner than the wafers used in conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si) based solar cells,which can be up to 200 µm thick. Thin-film solar cells are commercially used in several technologies,including cadmium telluride (CdTe),copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS),and amorphous thin-film silicon.
Between 1992 and 2023,the worldwide usage of photovoltaics (PV) increased exponentially. During this period,it evolved from a niche market of small-scale applications to a mainstream electricity source. From 2016-2022 it has seen an annual capacity and production growth rate of around 26%- doubling approximately every three years.
Solar Valley is an industrial area in the Thalheim part of the municipality of Bitterfeld-Wolfen in the district Anhalt-Bitterfeld,Saxony-Anhalt,Germany. It is situated close to the Bundesautobahn 9 and the Leipzig/Halle Airport.
Hanwha Group is a large business conglomerate (chaebol) in South Korea. Founded in 1952 as Korea Explosives Co.,the group has grown into a large multi-profile business conglomerate,with diversified holdings stretching from explosives—their original business—to energy,materials,aerospace,mechatronics,finance,retail,and lifestyle services. In 1992,the company adopted its abbreviation as its new name:"Hanwha".
Hanergy Holding Group Ltd. (Hanergy) is a Chinese multinational company headquartered in Beijing. The company is focusing on thin-film solar value chain,including manufacturing and solar parks development. It also owns the Jinanqiao Hydroelectric Power Station and two wind farms.
JinkoSolar Holding Co.,Ltd. is a solar module manufacturer headquartered in Shanghai,China,and listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2010. Its subsidiary Jinko Solar Co.,Ltd. was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2022.
LONGi Green Energy Technology Co. Ltd. or LONGi Group (隆基股份),formerly Xi'an Longi Silicon Materials Corporation,is a Chinese photovoltaics company,a major manufacturer of solar modules and a developer of solar power projects.
Meyer Burger Technology AG is an industrial manufacturer of solar cells and solar modules,headquartered in Gwatt,a district of Thun,Switzerland. The company's registered shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
Alta Devices was a US-based specialty gallium arsenide (GaAs) PV manufacturer,which claimed to have achieved a solar cell conversion efficiency record of 29.1%,as certified by Germany's Fraunhofer ISE CalLab.
