Israel-based Landa Group's technology company Lumet has picked Hanwha Qcells to use its proprietary and 'disruptive' fine-line metallization technology for its solar PV cell lines that replaces silver pastes, screen printers and dryers.
The company claims its technology will enable solar cell producers to attain both higher cell efficiency and lower cost.
Metallization is a process where conductive silver fingers are screen-printed onto the cell's surface. Efforts are ongoing in the industry to reduce the finger width to bring down silver consumption, thereby costs, and reduce light shading to improve efficiency.
Lumet explains that current screen-printing technologies have now plateaued at finger widths of about 20 microns.
According to Lumet, its technology—the industry's 'simplest and lowest cost—can produce sub-ten-micron finger widths. It claims to be the industry's highest speed PV metallization technology rolling out 10,000 cells/hour.
With its headquarters and R&D center in Israel, Lumet says it plans its manufacturing operations close to its customers in the US and China.
Its 1st customer Hanwha Qcells operates a large-scale solar PV module factory in the US where it is also building a solar supply chain (see Hanwha Solutions Planning 8.4 GW US Production Capacity).
"After lengthy evaluation and testing, Qcells has decided to adopt Lumet metallization technology for its future PV solar cell lines," said EVP and Global Chief Technology Officer at Hanwha Qcells, Dr. Danielle Merfeld. "We see tremendous potential in the Lumet metallization technology, which is a breakthrough on multiple fronts, setting records for finest lines, lowest cost, highest efficiency, highest speed and smallest footprint."