Prism Solar begins holographic film production

LAKE KATRINE, NY—At Intersolar 2008 in Munich, Germany, Prism Solar Technologies announced that it would be receiving the first equipment for its 60 MW holographic film production line.

Jul 1st, 2008

LAKE KATRINE, NY—At Intersolar 2008 in Munich, Germany, Prism Solar Technologies announced that it would be receiving the first equipment for its 60 MW holographic film production line. The equipment will undergo testing and tuning at its Tucson, AZ facility before it goes into production in New York later this year. “This is the day we’ve been waiting for,” said Prism Solar’s CEO Rick Lewandowski. “Our optics will be a fulcrum for the industry.” In addition to its research and development facility in Tucson, Prism recently opened offices in Lake Katrine, NY and expects to begin manufacturing and shipping its holographic planar concentrator (HPC) film by the end of this year.

“We will begin making film for testing by [the week of June 23rd],” said Glenn Rosenberg, Prism Solar’s CTO and the inventor of the technology. “This is a historic step forward in transforming photovoltaic (PV) module production in the entire industry and will be a key module component in the near future. Prism’s holographic optical elements (HOE) will bring down the cost of a silicon module to well under a dollar per watt while increasing the kilowatt hours produced annually,” Rosenberg said.

Last year Prism Solar won an international award at Cleantech Network’s Forum XIV in Toronto as “Most Promising Investment Opportunity.” Prism will have a total capacity of 120 MW of film production by the end of 2009 and the company is already working on the design for a one gigawatt film production line.

Individuals attending the Photovoltaics Summit 2008 (www.intertechpira.com) in San Diego, CA on Friday, June 20th got a sneak peak at the new manufacturing process when Prism’s CEO presented the technology.

The 3rd annual Photovoltaics Summit ran from June 18–20 and focused on business and technical innovations in the solar-electric industry. In three days, the conference program featured two keynote presentations, 22 plenary session talks, two panels, and two half-day pre-conference workshops. In all, 35 industry leaders from around the globe, including India, Australia, Japan, Germany and the U.S., provided a comprehensive assessment of the global market, finance and investments, developments in crystalline silicon PV, the outlook for silicon feedstock and manufacturing, advances in thin films and future generation PV, and applications.

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