Photovoltaic Technology Intellectual Property (PTiP) has helped expand solar PV throughout South Africa, commercializing the intellectual property and patented technology developed within the University of Johannesburg. And as a result, it was awarded the 2014 South Africa Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation Leadership.
The company is hoping to expand and commercialize the manufacturing process of its developed solar thin film modules. The solar PV modules manufactured by PTiP Innovations have a very high local content value of about 80% to 90%, while competitors mostly assemble imported parts. By offering an indigenous PV technology, PTiP Innovation contributes to the development of a new South African green economy, which will also create numerous job opportunities locally.
“The core intellectual property of PTiP Innovations is an innovative process technology aimed at producing homogeneous multiphase semiconductor alloys, which contain five chemical elements – copper, indium, gallium, selenium, sulphur,” said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Celine Paton. “Various combinations of these alloys are preferred as second-generation semiconductor materials to replace silicon as the base material in PV devices.”
PTiP Innovations’ partnerships with various departments of the South African government and Singulus Technologies AG, a German solar technology machine equipment supplier, has enabled it to start building a semi-commercial solar thin-film module manufacturing plant. This facility is designed to aid the development and transfer of commercially scalable production processes, products and expertise to commercial licensed partners. The company has managed to establish a stable production process four months after commissioning the plant, which demonstrates the reproducibility and stability of the commercial production processes. Commercial module efficiencies above 10% have been achieved within a record period, which is testimony to the commercial value of the PTiP Technology.
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