Strategy

From the production of silicon and wafers to solar cells and solar modules

The cornerstone of our strategy is to provide our customers with a one-stop-shop solution for technology, products and technological process services across the entire photovoltaic value-added chain. Our aim is to achieve a leadership role as an international provider for the photovoltaic industry. We have already made good progress thanks to our technology and turnkey concept. We supply leading solar energy companies and market entrants with turnkey production lines and individual systems for the production of crystalline solar cells, solar modules and thin film modules. In the silicon and wafers field, we also offer our customers engineering and technological process services and production systems including set-up of turnkey silicon plants.

The main goal is to achieve cost reduction (€/Wp) in the photovoltaic industry, as this is the only way of sustainably improving the competitiveness of photovoltaics compared to traditional as well as renewable energy sources, and achieving grid parity for solar power in the medium-term with our solutions. We can already achieve this goal with our model of the grid-parity factory. Sub-plants are designed and processes combined to ultimately achieve fully-integrated production.

Our aim is to:

• build on our international market position,
• continually improve/optimize our products and services and develop new ones,
• improve research and development and
• increase our international presence and production capacities.

To date, photovoltaic systems have mainly been based on solar cells produced from crystalline silicon. In the manufacture of these systems, the value-added chain includes the production of silicon suitable for solar cells, the manufacture of ingots and wafers made from solar silicon, the processing of wafers into solar cells and the connection of solar cells to solar modules. In contrast to crystalline technology, the value-added chain of thin film technology is restricted to the production of base materials and the production of thin film modules in an integrated line. Both crystalline solar modules and thin film modules are then made available on the market and installed at customer sites by system providers – in combination with appropriate electronic, storage and assembly solutions.

Value chain for crystalline solar cells

Value chain for thin film modules