All right well it's a pleasure
to be back here at Georgia Tech.

I do get back often now
that I live in Atlanta and.

My kids and wife and I enjoy coming
back for a lot of the past for

games like tonight and
football games too but it's fun.

Also to work at a company like city that's
been spun out of Georgia Tech because we

get we get a lot of deep roots and
connections back to.

Back to the facilities here and
a lot of the new research but.

A lot of familiar faces.

So I'll talk a little bit about
some the the what we're doing.

How we were born out of Georgia Tech and

license the intellectual
property developed here and

then walk you through a little bit how we
make solar cell after the lecture series.

I've got a couple up here.

They're about two hundred
microns thick soon.

If you bend them they'll break but

they're laminated a little bit of
plastic just so you can handle them.

And that's our base product and
I'll walk you through how how

we manufacture that how we manufactured
it when the lowest cost in the world for

the highest power so.

At the end will open it up to Q. and A And

we'll start by showing you a little
bit about how we got it all started

as I mentioned we're based out of Norcross
Georgia everything we do right now is all

of our ID all of our manufacturing and
everything comes out of our

headquarters building there in Norcross
our production right now is eighteen

percent efficient cells we've got twenty
percent of the lab that will be launching.

We also specify in design modules
that these cells go into.

We have German top tier customers we

have Spanish top tier customers we
have Indian top tier customers.

We're exporting almost everything
we make right now out of the U.S.

and certainly out of the state of Georgia.

I hope that changes soon because I hate
being on an airplane internationally all

the time and I'd like to stick
around town a little bit more.

So my goal is to find more customers
domestically or to create them.

The idea here really is

all about affordability it's
the intersection between cost and power.

There's more powerful cells made out
there from some of our competitors but

they cost thirty percent more to make.

There's more cheap cells out there
that are made in different countries

that are lower powered And so if you
find the perfect intersection especially

in a high tech industry where emerging
technologies can be very expensive

proven technologies can can be made
lower quality and very cheaply.

You'll see that start to converge
over time as the industry matures.

That's really where it's a need
as already found itself where

we're at the higher end of the power but

we're trying to make sure that we have
a low cost manufacturing process.

So my goal today is to walk you through
how we do that low cost manufacturing.

What about one hundred thirty employees
right now we're privately funded.

Well about one hundred fifty employees
by the end of this summer as

we bring up our third line and hire some
more operators in a couple engineers

our largest investors are Warburg Pincus
and Goldman Sachs N.E.A.

N H I G And our plan is to go public.

When the economy is well have better.

So a little bit about how we got started.

How many of you have heard of
Dr hockey here at Georgia Tech.

He holds the doubly professors chair for

Georgia southern
Georgia Power Southern Company.

Here and runs the center started that
in one thousand nine hundred five and

it was really the first real P.V.

work done and the eastern United States
mostly focused on Crystal and.

By nine hundred ninety two
the DIA we decided to make

two university centers of
excellence one in Georgia Tech and

Crystal in technology and
one at the University of Delaware and.

Films and so that's really how Yousef
was born here with the funding.

And in two thousand and seven after he'd
been approached many times by various

people trying to start a business.

Dr hockey agreed that it might make sense.

He wanted to first have a twenty
percent sell in production but

he was convinced by a lot of
business folks that eight

seventeen percent in
production is very good.

We're at eighteen percent right now
when you can make a business out of this

in two thousand and
seven we launched an EVA.

And we started in the labs
over on fifth street.

Where we had a small team I was
the thirteenth employee two years ago and

since then we ramped up we built
our facility in Norcross and

were in full production making
about one hundred megawatts a year.

Now I promise to also
talk a little bit about

some of the other technologies
besides Suni of us.

Model Crystal in technology.

I won't go into much detail on these
because honestly I don't have any

expertise in how they're made and how
they're designed but I did just want to

point out that you know the two big
groups you'll hear about thin film and

crystalline as I mentioned with
the to use sets right in thin film.

Sigs is one of the major ones and
it was in the press this week

this past week the Atlanta Business
Chronicle said that this company me and so

Lay had taken a lease or
bought a building out of Gryphon

to start making thin film modules out
there so that should be interesting.

So maybe we will be a hotbed
of solar technology and

it won't just be sent even
Georgia Tech they're out of San Jose.

Cadmium telluride CAD Tel type products
that's First Solar's a big public

company in the U.S. that makes that
product and they've been around for

a while and they're successful amorphous
silicon is the third type of thin film.

And that's always seen on.

Applied to glass and it's been around for
a while energy conversion devices

in it there's a lot of smaller Indian
players in that type of business and

it has its positives and negatives its
Of course not nearly as good as crystal

in silicon why Crystal
in silicon makes sense.

There's two types there's multi in mano
I'll walk you through a little bit.

The difference you can you can actually
see quite a bit of difference just

in the geometry.

This is pseudo square explain why this
is square and this one pseudo square

sin even mo tacker the world leaders in
model Crystal in technology right now and

selling ourselves across the world in
multi Q cells is probably the biggest

has been around the longest B.P.
Solar is certainly large in that and

they they started with a company called
Solar X. which was bought by B.P.

Amoco years ago and then I mean bought
by Ameco then B.P. bought Amoco.

Solar world's another company a German
company that's also making these products.

So why Crystal and

silicon Well it actually gives you
again it's all about bang for buck.

You can get much more power
out of this same square meter

with crystalline silicon then
you can with then film and

when you go from multi to mano
you get even a little bit more.

So this is the cream of the crop right
now in this type of technology as far

as efficiency or power per square meter

a little bit about ten films I mention

the three different types morph
a silicon triple junction and

the highest officially in the lab right
now is about twelve point three percent.

It's in production.

It's probably more around
nine to ten percent CAD Tel

is around sixteen point five
in the lab in production.

It's probably at least three or

four sometimes five percent
lower than that what we're.

Seeing on the field and then cigs.

The copper any M gallium
still in the night.

That's twenty percent
close to in the labs.

But nobody's making anything in production
nearly toward that it's probably much

closer toward Again eight to
twelve percent depending on

whose whose claims you're reading and
what type of product you're buying.

This is a generic
structure of a thin film.

You'll see if it's multiple
layers laminated together.

It usually always needs to be on
a substrate either a metallic full or

glass your C. class most of the time.

Some of the process is used.

But then there are much higher Cap Ex
capital expenditure then for Crystal and.

It's a lot of laminating it needs to
be done on a scale that's very large

to to get it to make
make sense economically

you do use a lot less material
you use a lot less silicon

silicon is a product that can get
deer on the market sometimes.

Right now.

Silicon is a London in the market but
two years ago a spot for

ISIS went up to two hundred
three hundred dollars a K G.

Now it's about fifty dollars a K.G.
So we're all dependent upon that

if you look at a little bit deeper
dive on the cigs technology.

This is really a good look at the chance
parent conductive oxide is usually

a oxide or a ten

oxide there's a buffer layer between
that and then the cigs itself.

Always have a metal contact layer.

Generally it's molybdenum right now and
then glass or

metal foil again is
the big substrate behind.

A little bit about the crystal and
value chain.

As I was mentioning.

We start with poly silicon.

And there are companies out there
supplying this some of our suppliers

are him lots of a conductor a subsidiary
of Dow Corning in Midland Michigan D.C.

Voc or Korean Voc or
German both Bachar and

hemlock have announced building
a big poly plants in Tennessee.

But a billion dollars each so that'll
be happening in the next two years so

they'll be abundant supply of polysilicon
that's good for our business but

from the poly silicon then we
need in our business we need for

somebody to grow a single
model Crystal and get and

it's a lot like if you think about
supersaturated a warm solution of water

with sugar you put all the sugar crystals
in and you can draw out a crystal you

seed crystal it on a string and draw out a
big rock candy Crystal when you're a kid.

This is really how you pull
out a single crystal and

in get mana silicon out of the poly.

It's it's a very complicated
process you can't have any.

Any of the ground moving around
it as you're pulling it out and

it takes a lot of heat and

it takes a set of crucial bills
underneath that are generally not usable.

And you have to be very careful
about the purity levels.

We have the zinc it's grown for
us to a certain resisted body and

to a certain minority
lifetime carrier spec and.

Once they get to that specifications.

Then we have to have somebody in
those guys aren't going to do it.

The poly guys never go that it's some
of the guys do the way frame but

we have somebody cut these into wafers and

the wafers are where we start
with our raw product which is.

About two hundred microns thick.

War on doped semiconductor material.

All of this really borrows a lot
from the semiconductor industry.

And what makes crystal in Silicon
a very good product work with with

good reliability is it's the most heavily
researched product in the world really.

If you think about the years of
semiconductor research that's gone into

silicon people know how how to
treat silicon how to process it and

what it's going to do in the field.

So there's probably no
material it's had as much R.

and D. time put on it as silicon
from from the way first that

start in our factory then
we produce the solar cells.

We work with our our customers
around the world to make the modules

they go into that's the panels
you'll see out in the field.

And we also are starting to
design some of our own and

have our partners manufacture those for
us.

And then the balance of systems is
the inverters it comes out D.C. you've got

invert that current to AC current There's
there's other components that go into it.

There's trackers you can use there's
racking systems everything all

adding to the cost of the system and then
somebody needs to put it all together and

put it on your house or
your commercial installation.

Our goal.

One of my main goals of the company right
now is we can make an eighteen percent

efficient sell but by the time it gets
into a module you lose a couple of

percent there just due to serious
resistance losses in the wiring and

everything about twenty
to twenty three percent.

Once you get through the inverter and
through that wiring loss in the field

before it ever gets to the grid for
me that's leaving way too many watts on

the table if if we're spending all of our
time and money it's Neva making an eight

hundred one thousand percent efficient
cell and by the time it gets to the grid.

You've lost over twenty
five percent of that power.

There's a lot of optimization to be done
by a lot of good engineers on looking at.

Balance of systems.

So there's still much work to be done
there and it's a wide open feel a good

way to see the quick difference between
multi and mano if you see right here.

Multi you will always be fully
square motto right now is

generally never square because
it costs too much to coopt off

the circular in get
the cylindrical in that sides.

This again is one of the reasons why
they're different multi it's cast

him out the poly silicon you poor it
into a square mold so to speak and

you cast it and then cut it up into
square wafers mando Here's the seed

crystal being pulled out of a multi and
batch of silicon.

Out of the crucial and it will be
pulled up and make a very long heavy

in get this is good view of hemlock

simming conductor plant up in Michigan
where they make poly out of sight.

This is crushed or pounded poly rock so

to speak and that's what feeds
the crucial that you melt down pull

in get These are what being it's look
like most of the units up until two years

ago were diameter of
twenty five millimeter.

Now to fifty six is common and that's
probably where we'll standardize for some

time unlike the semiconductor industry
where you make it chip much smaller on

every one of these wafers were actually is
in the bulk of the way for for our product

and there are some limitations on
efficiency as you start getting too big.

You can make a much more
powerful cell when it's small.

So how do we how do we get away for
out of this big tall and

get the sides or cut off.

To.
One fifty six and

cropped All that said back into
the mixture in the ratio and

this is done with wire saws and
wire cells are interesting

technology again developed in
the semiconductor industry.

These are high speed steel wires and

The Wire doesn't actually do the cutting
it's actually it's done silicon carbide

grit in an Athlon glycol base that
cuts through these cylinders.

And there's a lot of a lot of work that
goes on here to make sure you don't

get any taper on the way first that
you don't get a wedge shape way for

the steel wire braids over time.

This takes about twelve to twenty four
hours to cut some of these if you

run it faster you heat it
up you ruin the slippery.

Some people to save costs recycle
the slurry too often that creates

problems too.

So there's a lot of quality that goes
into how these things are wire saw.

There's also something called
perf loss at this point and

perf loss is when that wire and
that grit slurry comes through.

There's think of sawdust being produced.

All the silicon that's removed.

It's about forty percent.

As we get there and thinner.

Wafers goes into the slurry never
to be recycled at this point.

So again something to optimize
there in the future as well.

This is a view of our typical solar
cell we make right now at Sydney.

You see the main section here is our

wafer we put a silicon
nitride coating on top.

That's the blue coating or dark dark
blue looks almost black under glass.

And we have a back surface field
of aluminum this is the process.

I'm going to walk you through right now
we're averaging eighteen percent and

this month on our production line and we.

Well we can get past that too.

And that's all by process optimization and
recipe design.

A lot of the intellectual
property we code licensed or

license from Georgia Tech and
used to starts an EVA is around

the recipes that have
gone into this equipment.

So here's a look at our factory.

This is a good schematic overview
the first thing that will do is start with

Raul wafers in will do incoming inspection
and will simulate the way for stacks and

check each one then we go into
a process of texturing etching

we going to some diffusion furnace is
phosphorus glass removal of fossil oxide

we go into P.C.B. and then that whole
side is really the what looks a lot

like a semiconductor type of silicon some
a conductor equipment on this side looks

more like a printed circuit board facility
we're putting the circuitry on the way for

at that point and then goes through the
electrical contact formation laser edge

isolation at the end and then we test sort
unpack this is what I'll walk you through

in detail because each one of these is
a nice little unit operation of its own.

So the first thing we do we
need to inspect the wafers and

they were grown Darst back and cut back.

But we do need to make sure that when
they come in the geometry is just right.

The bull didn't slip while I
was being cut on the wires and

it is perfectly centered this
happens that there's no cracks.

These are fragile items where we're
buying product from around the world and

shipping it in and you know you
can get some damage in shipping

T.V.'s total thickness variation
across the way for we don't want

that wedge shape because you know as
you're running twelve hours at that.

Well it gets thinner and thinner and
thinner and you can get a wedge shaped way

for that wouldn't be good for
our processing and then lifetime and

resisted it is another thing we check
that again it's kind of the key.

Electronic characteristics of the way for
this is the piece of equipment.

That this is one this is line one line two
is a little bigger runs twice the capacity

and is a little more sophisticated
looking than this one but

there are places here for
four stacks of raw wafers.

There's a bit newly a fact that lifts them
up here single lights that were runs them

through the non-contact process
of checking those parameters that

I just described.

They then go into a plastic carrier one
hundred in each carrier there is an R.F.

ID tag in each one that starts
track in each lot every wafer and

every lot of one hundred
has a unique ID and

and at that time they start being
tracked through the entire process.

If we look at what a way for
comes in this is a basic way for

it comes in one hundred fifty six
millimeter pseudo square as I described.

We've got Boron doped all the way through
and it's two hundred microns in thickness

and see a human hair is about ninety
Micron So about two human hairs thick.

And that means that our automated
equipment needs to be very careful with

these wafers.

We have probably a ninety nine point
eight percent mechanical yield in our

process right now our Quitman
does not mishandle them at all.

It's probably the best in the world.

So this point we're ready to take
these wafers we think of them as being

dishwasher clean the whoever cut them with
the marks on everything was supposed to

get most of that slurry off and
was supposed to make

sure there's no residues or particles on
them and they're supposed to be dry and

clean what we need to do then is
to clean atomically so to speak.

Make sure we have all any organics
any metal residue off of them

remove the wire saw the damage is about
ten microns of wire saw damage think of it

is as teeth on the saw that
actually bite into our way for.

We don't want that on there.

We have to remove that and
then we have to put.

An and texture on top of the surface so
that we trap some more light.

We do that with potassium hydroxide
nice profile calls warmed and

the first batter and
that removes the solid damage.

That's the process and then the texture
is starting to be put on them.

This is a picture of that first bench that
went in and this went in last October over

a year ago and now we have one that
twice that capacity sitting beside that

that went up to full twenty four
by seven September timeframe.

So I talked about the textured
surface once we get the saw the damage

issues removed.

We get we use hydrochloric acid to
remove the metals to trace metals and

maybe they're hydrofluoric acid or
remove some of the organics

then we want to put this
pyramid texture on the surface.

Now if you look at a bare
wafer when it comes in

about thirty percent are a third of the
lights reflected off and we want to trap

every possible photon every bit of
light that can hit that surface.

So our first goal is to change
that that surface texture.

We do it.

We grow these ingots are grown for
us on a one plane.

And because of that when they're exposed

to potassium hydroxide I spoke
to alcohol in this bath.

It's preferentially to
make these pyramids.

And these pyramids balance light and
scatter light throughout there

to bring down the reflection from
about thirty three percent down

to the high teens into the low teens
ten to twelve percent reflection.

So that's that's good for

our business to make sure we're
getting every photon possible.

So the next step after that we've
got a clean dry touched wafer

we then go into our diffusion furnaces and
our diffusion furnace.

High temperature about eight
hundred fifty degrees C..

Each one of our three diffusion
furnaces has five tubes in it and

the key here is that this is where
we create the at the P.N. junction.

We've got P.
type Boron conductive material.

We're going to drive phosphorus and
through a pocket babbler.

That brings phosphorus
gas into that furnace and

we're going to drive that phosphorus gas
into the first layer of the more and so we

can Dr Mitchell to create a P.N. junction
because phosphorus is an anti period.

We measure the resistance when they come
out to see if you can see a picture.

This is a screen that measures
the sheet resistance on every single

wafer when it comes out of
the diffusion furnace and

again all of this is automated handling
one of the interesting things you'll see

if you're at our factory is that we've
gone now from the plastic carriers that I

talked about the one hundred into a set
of carries here that stay stationary and

move only in this this unit and
they're quartz they're very high purity

quartz that can take high temperatures and
have no contamination on them.

The plastic would never
survive that heat of course.

So at the diffusion step.

What we've done is put the P.-N. junction

all around every one of the surfaces but
we've also created a little bit of

a problem we've actually got the first
thing the first non-value added step.

We've added a phosphorus oxide

glass type coating around the whole
thing that we've got to remove.

And so our next step is to go into
what we call FOS glass at your

last remove to remove
that phosphorus oxide.

This is a very quick flick acid.

It's not something you ever
want to have touch you.

Because you wouldn't feel it would
be just like water on your skin but

the next day you'd be dead.

But this removes that
phosphorus oxide surface.

That's all around it.

Real quickly and gets it clean and
dry and ready for the next process.

This is a step that our second generation
product that comes out this summer

removes That's a picture it

looks like a smaller version of
the other web that I showed you.

So at this point we've
got a phosphorus emitter

that's just below the surface
on our silicon wafer.

All right so the next exciting thing
is to go into not just the C.B.D. but

plasma enhance C.V.T.
and this is where we introduce

into the chemical vapor deposition
chamber Siling gas and ammonia gas

at about seven hundred about four
hundred fifty degrees C. and

we they react to form a silicon nitride
coating on the surface of the material.

This gives the the way for
its anti-reflective coating that

either looks blue black or
dark rich blue and that's tune to

again make sure that we stop reflecting
any light that hits the service.

Remember we went from about thirty three
percent down to ten to twelve percent with

this blue a R. coating that we put on
it here we're down to probably two or

three percent reflection.

So again we've got to get every photon we
that hits that surface captured if we can.

And there's also a nice secondary step
here that there is hydrogen is present

in this chamber that allows
you to passive A Some of

the the interstitial issues that are going
on with the way for inside at that point.

This is what a P.C.B. chamber looks like.

This is the graphite that goes back and
forth into the chamber.

We have plastic carrier.

We had a quartz carrier that looks like.

Really expensive glass and now this one
is graphite again it has to be conductive

because we're doing a plasma field in
that styling ammonia gas around every

wafer on the tour of the factory this is
always one of the favorite spots because

there's a five axis robot arm here they
grabs eighteen wafers at a time and

clicks them into place with one side
of the way for up against the graphite

the other side exposed to the plasma and
then at the next step.

It takes reaches in it takes
eighteen blue coated ones out and

puts them in line to be inspected
next to the control measure here

is we have a camera that
measures everyone and

we call it blue eyes because it's
measuring the blueness of the air coating.

So at this point we have a nice
silicon nitride layer on top of our

phosphorous emitter and the wafer that we
started with the texting is still there.

Below the surface.

So at that point we've really finished
making a working diet that traps.

Most of the light that hits it the next
thing we need to do now is this thing is

active it actually would create
free electrons electrons and

hold pairs but we need to put the
circuitry on to gather those electrons and

this is one of the areas that has
pioneered along with the technology that

we license for
Georgia Tech and that we use

a screen printing process that's a lot
like silk screening your T. shirts.

This is a little more sophisticated
use a stainless steel mash and

silver aluminum pace aluminum paste and
pure silver paste in three different steps

to create the circuitry on this front back
side of the cell but some other companies.

You might have heard of sun
power they do a diffusion step

there's a sputtering step.

There's a lot of more expensive ways
to get the circuitry on here but

we've we've pioneered this
area with Dr hockey's Reed.

Search and

it really allows us again to keep
the processing costs as low as possible

while we're still on the upper ranges of
efficiency or power per square meter.

This is a picture of print line one.

This picture was taken before this summer
line two is a little bit longer and

a little bit fatter because it does
twice the amount of this line.

So it has two of these running in parallel
beside it and that's just over here now.

So the fact I got a little more crowded
after line two came up to speed

the electrical contact or
mation which is what's key here.

There's the front side fingers.

Are the little lines you see here.

They're about fifteen microns top
one hundred thirty microns wide and

this is the only way we can really get
the electrons off the front surface.

It's unfortunate though because you think
about it they get in the way of the light.

So in a perfect world you would
want those they're in a pragmatic

world you want them to be out of the way
like so you want them to be thin and

tall like tall because you want your
series resistance to be extremely low.

So you want to big fat conductive
pipe that's why they're

silver silver is an extremely
expensive material this year but

there's probably nothing better to do
that with again for cost trade offs.

So this is almost pure silver paste
put on and fired on the front.

These are bus bars that make the contacts
when this is put into a modular panel

with interconnect ribbon.

This is a nice side view of how
the finger gets look on that.

So the next thing we need
to do is flip it over.

Well we have to have to dry that side.

Flip it over.

And then start working on the back side
we need to print silver aluminum bus

bars on the backs.

And there are two of those right now.

Currently we're making three busbar
pattern of this that it's a little bit

more efficient a little bit more power and
then what's in between is

a aluminum paste and the whole back
side is not not the sunny side.

So we can use low cost material like
aluminum as a back surface field and

we don't have to worry about it being
nearly as conductive a silver and

we don't have to worry about photons
coming through the back side.

That is unless we want to
make a by facial cell statin.

So if

you put aluminum on too thick and
fire too fast.

You'll get a cell that bows and
want to sell bows and

as the customers process it
later on to make a module.

It'll snap or crack.

So you've got to watch that you've got
to be very careful with aluminum to

put too much aluminum onto aluminum a lot
of heat and you don't want a hot module.

So the next step after

we we've tried the front side flip
it over printed the back side

then the next thing we need to do is
go through a spike firing furnace and

it's called a spike fire because it pops
up to about seven hundred fifty degrees C.

at this point what you do is you dry
that last layer we put on and then bring

it up to seven hundred fifty degrees C.
and just the right timing and increment.

And what you do is
the silver layer on top.

Has class for it and it gets heavy and
melts its way through the our coating

the blue coating that we put on it that
goes down and finds the pea injunction

that was just a few anxious below
the surface and if it's fired just right.

It stops right there and makes contact.

The backside the aluminum actually
melts at that temperature and

forms an alloy eutectic
type alloy with the.

Sieving conducted the silicone
on the backside and

forms a nice little interlinear there of
both materials for the back surface feel

at this point we have one last
non-value added stuff that we're

going to remove later
this year as well for

some new technology new designs and
that's laser edge isolation.

This isolates the front circuitry
from the back circuitry.

And it's if you look in through
that hole which you can't do here

you'll see a laser following an edge
pattern it's fast following edges.

It's a fast edge following a laser that
cuts a little trench around the side.

Just inside the active area of the cell
and that isolates the top side from

the back side otherwise you'd shut but
this is a good

representation of that trench that's
dug around the outside of all of these

and that point we have
a working perfectly working.

Solar Cell.

And we flash test it.

And sort it by its flash test so

when you're running a process
that's well in control.

You're probably safe we're averaging
eighteen percent on a good day.

We'll have about seventeen
point eight percent on one so

about eighteen point one percent on
the top side as our Ben dispersion and

every one of those gets its flashed Let's
see if we kind of good picture this.

That's the sort of everyone gets flashed
understander test conditions and

gets sorted into the proper bins our
customers buy by the bin because

they need to match the current and
the power within the module so

that they won't have any mismatches.

Because if you put a lower power cell and
with the higher power cells in a module

the lowest common denominator will
dominate and that be wasted money so

sorting and packing is extremely important
to our customers and that we have.

The most sophisticated flash
tester equipment in the world.

It's a burger test machine.

And it flashes and

then tells the sword which then to
put them in and there's also another

spec there's a there's another camera here
looking at all of these finger patterns.

It looks at the blueness and

looks at the geometry again to make sure
nothing cracked or went astray there and

it also looks at the finger
interruptions if we have three or

more finger interruptions over two
millimeters it becomes a be a great cell.

That's a perfectly
functioning cells not a shot.

It.

It produces it might even produce eighty
percent efficiency four point three watts

per cell but it doesn't look pretty.

We've got some customers some very
tough customers they want to be pretty.

And so that's an a spec and
I'll be spending and these don't sell for

as much as a but they make just
as much power and you buy buy.

The lot.

So if you have are going to put in cells
on your roof in a module asked for

the be so.

Also if you hold.

Once you laminate it's under glass
it's the it goes into Evie a package

and then under glass.

You'd be surprised how
much you can see from

about a metre away the cell
turns from blue to black.

And any of those little oddities
that might be very small but

the same when you're looking at a naked
cell seem to go away under glass.

And then once you put
them up on your roof.

It's even harder to see.

So talk a little bit about modules and
really we do not do this.

It's an EVA but our customers and some
of our partners do and this is a view of

the our self here and
this is the tab and having a ribbon.

I think it is just
soldering a nice thin wire.

Across the top on those buss bars and
it runs the length up and

down and you go from the front
to the back of the next one.

So over and back creating the circuit most

modules these days have ten to
twelve hour so strong in a string.

And sixty to seventy two is the normal

total cell module size and produced
anywhere from two hundred forty five watts

on the smaller one to three
hundred watts on the larger one.

Some of the most powerful per meter
squared modules in the market.

What are we going to do next.

Our base technology package that we
started with was supposed to get us

to about seventeen percent.

We've actually pushed it now
to eighteen percent just

too damn good engineering and I can't
take any credit for that I'm not it.

I'm not engineer with City The anymore.

I stopped engine doing
engineering a long time ago but

process engineers have really helped us
get this far with the equipment that most

people are going to only get seventeen
percent out of the rest of the world.

Our next product is probably not going
to name Delta star that's our R.

and D. name for it right now but

that that's going to change this summer
to get us up to one thousand percent.

Doctora hockey's proven here in this same
type of technology can get to twenty

percent and we'd like to get a thinners.

So we'd like to use less silicon silicon
so probably sixty percent of our cost

of goods sold right now and we can go
thinner our equipment can handle it but

our customers hate it
because they can't handle it.

So it's going to be a little bit time
before our customers can get their

equipment changed over to something
that handles a much thinner wafer.

So how would we make that
nineteen percent sell.

I can't tell you know a lot.

What I can tell you as it's
called in a selective a matter.

We change the way we make.

That front circuitry and
how it contacts the P.-N. junction here.

So it's all on the front
side how we do this.

This is going to get us to the next step.

Our third generation product the alpha
star we can do it in type instead of P.

type material in type is nice because
it has no light induced degradation

white induced aggregation means that
a peak type wafer out in the sunlight for

two or three days loses
a little bit of its efficiency.

And it's because the boron
doping in the material

reacts with oxygen and oxygen pairs and

clutters up the effect and
reduces the the the ability of the cell

to make as much power as it first started
off that is an unfortunate side item.

Side effect of having P.
type more and silicon.

Didn't matter to the semiconductor guys
but it matters a little bit to P.V..

And so our next our third generation
of cell will be an in type cell and

our current equipment will not handle
that we will be Alliance three.

And our second factor announced for

Michigan which will be
four hundred megawatts.

You also see we do we're going to do a lot
of different work on the back side on our

third generation product as well.

So I just want to close with
a couple of points that.

A lot of people locally say well
that's good for the Southwest.

It's good for
California I'm sure you've seen the solar

insolence curves that show that
Germany's put in a lot of solar and

you know Georgia does a lot
better as far as solar

radiation then Germany but you know
we have proof right here on the net

a tour of a Georgia Tech has been
running since the ninety six Olympics.

It's been generating
continuously since then.

It's put out over four billion
watt hours of power and

it's working just fine to
three hundred forty K.

to a facility and have any of you guys
seen this here on site on campus.

It looks good from there.

This is technology that was
state of the are in ninety six

these these modules are probably twelve

percent efficiency back then what
we're making now ourselves going in

modules probably up around fifteen
sixteen percent efficiency in a module.

So things have come a long way since then
and it's only getting better each year.

Leave you with a couple thoughts or

some nice websites if you
don't already know about them.

The Department of Energy has
a lot out there on their site and

on the end rail site.

There's a solar advisory
model that's just been

updated three times it's a great
way to model and and mock up.

What a field design would look like and
how it would operate and

what kind of power and what kind of
economics are generated off of it.

There's a simpler version.

If you want to do a quick and
dirty estimate.

It's called a P.V. Watts.

Which is now also part of the new Sam.

You can download all that for free.

It's the most powerful free
software I've ever found.

It's great.

There's other companies charging P.V.
system out of Switzerland that a lot of

people use but this can get
the job done for the most part.

So the buzz is a great website to find
out news about the solar industry.

In the U.S.

the Solar Energy Industries Association is
a membership organization we belong to.

They put out some good information
to support the industry things

to look at carbon carbon footprint.

Carbon tax ideas and
carbon footprint dot com.

And then a lot of our customers as.

Ask us about well what's it like in
New Jersey what's it like in California.

What are the state regulations in Georgia.

How do they compare favorably to some
of the places that are putting in a lot

more P.V. and this website.

Instead of base of state incentives
I think it's right out of N.C.

State is just perfect.

It's always up to date as far as I've
seen and it's got the regulations for

every state.

So that's the end of my presentation I
can open it up for a little bit of Q.

and A if we have time.

Yeah.

What

we could but that would be something
that's a little bit more exotic and

would cost a lot more money up process.

And yeah yeah that's a good question.

Let me see if I can go back to one
of the slides here and starts.

We'll walk you through each one takes
about there's a good shot of the whole

thing takes about four hours
from start to finish this

wet bench at the first process
step takes about fifty minutes

diffusion takes about forty five this
is pretty fast P.C.T.'s now down to

close to thirty minutes and
then the rest finishes out pretty quickly.

We have been playing with
recipes in the fusion for

hours when we first started off this
was an hour and this was an hour.

And Eells is everything to our business.

So we've been working to
change the wait times.

When the.

When the cells there wafers at this point
not really cells when they come out of

this diffusion furnace at that
eight hundred fifty degrees C..

They can do something we call potato
chip ing If you're not careful and

they'll shake like a praying will and
they'll break.

So we have to take them out slowly and we
have to let cool down before we before we

further handle them and that cooling
step is its killer to our cycle time.

And so we're doing everything
we can to minimize that.

But it's a fact of life right now.

Yes.

So.

Yeah.

Truly the best way to BEEN would be by
by power and by current at max power.

But right now the industry likes
to talk about efficiency and

so customers buy by efficiency been.

But they pay by power so
if they buy an eighteen percent efficient

cell then they're by the midpoint
power average in their on the range

of tolerances four point three watts per
cell in the by one hundred in a stack.

So by about four hundred thirty watts.

Yes or no I don't know.

So there's a lot of work that should
be done on the what's the global

footprint of energy consumed to make the
silicon to make the and get to make to so

now I've got a couple of very very
smart scientists on our D. team and

we have said have this discussion a launch
all the time is are we saving the world

are we just making money and we'd like
to all think we're saving the world.

And we our best estimate is
that within four or five years.

You can capture back all the energy that's
consumed you'll be making positive power

output you're our allies much quicker than
that in most places but if you look at.

All the energy consumed in the value
chain and it's only getting better.

That's a lifetime of the cell.

Yeah the lifetime of the cell we warranty
these for twenty five years they'll

give you eight percent of their power
that they were originally tested at after

twenty five years they can go much longer
the cell actually can can work for

eon really what starts happening is
if you put it in a module package.

There's glass laminate.

Laminated with E.V.A.'s
onto the cell structure and

that ribbon behind that there's
some more Ethyl vinyl acetate and

then a back sheet made of either
a polyester Ted large material or

a couple of other co polymers on
the back side that whole package.

It seems thermal stress and
it sees freeze thaw cycles and over time.

All those things move it a little
bit different coefficient of thermal

expansion.

So it's the thermal mechanical wear and

tear that really reduces the efficiency
of the package over time.

Our module customers all warranty
their product they have to for

twenty five years the guarantee within
the first ten some twelve years.

But you'll get ninety percent of the power
out of it and after twenty five years.

You'll still be getting
eighty percent of the power.

Now there are modules that have
been around I guess B.P.'s

been probably one of the companies that's
been making modules as solar rights and

B.P. and Amoco for forty years
now there are some guys that will

tell stories about them their grandfather
having them on it's hot in Norway

where everybody has a weekend
hot apparently off the grid and

the modules are still working really
well is that's the report really well

you know but there are studies done
that they're all doing well over time.

That's a good question.

The the wire saw people like to think
they can get there it is a challenge.

I don't know of competing technologies
right now I'm sure there are some

what's interesting about it.

What's interesting about Monica's does so

because when you get down to
that that then this really.

It becomes a little bit more
pliable it's not as fragile.

You can actually flux it a little bit so

you get some nice interesting properties
when you start thinning it out that they

are favorable to some of
the unused applications.

So reclaiming

our scrap our waste or
things that went down the line.

Yeah yeah that's a good question.

We can reclaim.

If we over atch Let's say that
there's a spring storm and there's

a lightning strike a transformer down the
road in our power goes out hypothetically.

And this this circuitry goes out and

we can't pull the robot out of
the battle over at these wafers.

And we cannot use them at that point
those go in to reclaim scrap pile

that we sell to the metal recyclers in
the high tech industry that use them for

semiconductor or bring them back into P.V.
A lot of that is sold to lower

quality producers in Asia that
then remailed it and use it.

There's things called Pot scraps
from the crucial bills and

pulling those saying it's
a lot of people to buy that.

And we use it and they can make
they can pull in gets in they can

make they can cast multi That doesn't mean
I respect them might need somebody else

suspect further down
the line we can strip off.

We can strip off the our coding
the silicon nitride coding and

rework those one stay
start getting a medal.

Contacts on them at that
point we have to sell them.

To somebody that wants to get
the silver off mostly the silver

is the most valuable at that point.

If we make a shunt at the end
we after we test everyone.

If there's there's always
some shunts probably one or

two percent shunting
which means they're not

performing the way our customers have
specified and there's there's a problem.

There's either way the laser
edge isolation didn't happen.

Well or there's a burn through with
the aluminum to the front side and

we can sell all of our shots if
their whole right now to China and

they make garden lights and toys out
of them they'll cut those shots and

where they're not shots anymore
into smaller pieces of a cell and

that's what you find in your garden lights
and small toys that are solar powered.

We've also got a huge domestic
market in India where

they they they laser
cut are low into cells.

Says our experiments or the shots and they
use them they they use pieces of cells and

some of their domestic modules that
are about twenty five watts and

it's a standard sized It's become very
popular for the domestic market in India.

I'm not sure why but it's something
they've settled on so they actually laser

cut ourselves down to
a smaller size barriers

or.

Here in the U.S.

what drives the the markets in the U.S.
and really in the rest of the world

are regulations whether there's
a feed in tariff like in Germany or

Spain or Italy whether there's
influences that the boy.

Or they keep you from importing
like in China or Japan or

whether there's been government stimulus.

We've got we were the first cells
to be put into an off grid tied one

megawatt system in India first grid tied
solar farm in India and in the state of.

Not Karnataka that was our
second one West being dull.

And you look at the West Bengal
government in India.

Everybody else in India tells you their
communist they'll do anything they want

those they'll make it happen and
that's true.

They were the first to do
it just because they could.

They could pay for it.

We've got the largest grid installed
facility in West being all India and

all of India that's the largest one is so
little over three megawatts.

And that was a government program to
start P.V. in West Bengal as well so

government government programs are really
some of the key drivers feed in

tariffs renewable portfolio
standards are P.S.

If you go on one of those
websites that I listed.

I talked about had the state regulations.

You'll see R.P.'s standards in
the US drive the US market.

The only state in the southeast that has
an R.P.S. standard is North Carolina.

That's the first install we ever had in
the United States we have a funny five

hundred fifty megawatt solar field on an
old landfill there that just went live in

December two hundred twenty
kilowatt system on a food line and

carry North Carolina now and
that's because Progress Energy and

Duke Energy are very very
progressive pardon the pun for

Progress Energy there but and
that's because the state passed a law

saying that they must have twelve
percent renewables by two thousand and

twelve twelve by twelve other
states have twenty by twenty.

Georgia Florida Alabama.

What we call the Greater Southern Company
area has no such thing.

To that into a question that covered for

a while

yet we are not down to a dollar a lot but
it's always bang for the buck.

If you roll out two square meters
of First Solar you're going to

get less than half the power
you get from my product.

So if you're area constrained if
you're a large commercial rooftop on

a food line and you say I want to get all
the kilowatt hours I can from my rooftop.

Would you roll out some thin film they get
you half the power per square meter for

half the price or
would you maximize the area and

that's always the trade off that comes
up right now if not Area constrained

roll out a bunch of thin film have
a great one thing that's a drawback

on that you still have to have
all the labor to put it in it's

bigger if it's in frames if it's on glass
all that's got to be handled you get twice

the amount of bounce the system sometimes
and that adds cost to the install.

So at the module level it
may look like a great deal.

Once you get it in the field.

It doesn't look like
nearly as great a deal.

But that's a good so it's good
healthy competition right now and

we would love to go up against them to

speak in silicon so you're
the incumbent material in the industry.

But today eighty percent of
the industry is probably around

ninety percent really and you need to lead
the way and efficiencies way up there.

So what keeps you up at night.

What competitor.

Or what technology that you
see coming down the pipe and.

Yeah you know technology wise but

what keeps are indeed
scientists awake at night.

There's a cell called the Pluto cell
that Suntec in China is developing.

With technology from the University
of New South Wales you N.S.W.

is very sophisticated in their
research in the solar program and

they're putting out very
very good research and

studies and reports and claims for
very very powerful cells.

Now there's about twenty steps in
their manufacturing process and

they haven't made any of it come off
their commercial line to China yet.

So I'm not worried that it's
going to come out any time soon.

And I expect to see some
of the people they hired

from the University New South Wales
may be leaving so

that would be a good sign but
it's great technology and

I you know it's good for
the industry to see those kind of things.

What else keeps us awake
at night you know I'd love.

I'd love for the U.S. to be a little more
progressive on thinking about the future.

You know is that should
there be a carbon tax.

Should there be cap and trade is it nice
just to have a nice R.P.'s don't even give

me a feed in tariff just say that
you know we like twelve percent

of all of our new energy from the
utilities coming from something renewable

that's that's not asking too much.

You know twelve by twelve would be
nice just to see something like that

in the meantime what keeps me up awake
at night is trying to catch flights.

OK Well that's very easy actually.

You just mean it was cheap six six.

So when you come in.

So she was yeah I bet you
could comment that and

I could on the organic ones right.

Defer to your speaker two weeks
from now is an expert in that

area but I will tell you if
you ever wanted a solar ten.

Be a great material and

if you're of whacking your troops far from
the grid things like that might work well.

Wait wait in portability have uses
are those knishes in the market.

Maybe that's their speaker in your.