Centrosolar installs thin-film solar rooftop pilot system

25 January 2010

Solar module manufacturer Centrosolar has installed a 63.36 kWp thin-film solar rooftop pilot system, using its new thin-film photovoltaic (PV) module TF Multi Professional.

Comments

Kari Williamson, Assistant Editor said

29 January 2010

IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT BELOW:

We contacted Centrosolar, and the comment about the tilt of the module has been amended from the press releases wording of "It is the first module in the thin-film area, where cells are installed with an inclination" to what you can now see in the story\s laste paragraph.

Regarding the technology, this is what Centrosolar came back with:

Referring to your letter to our product information TF Multi Professional, we state our position as follows:

- The bespoke system by Suntimes looks at a first glance similar to our thin-film-module TF Multi Professional. During the development of the system last year, Centrosolar and Suntimes cooperated professionally.

- However, there are fundamental distinctions in the system, at the installation of the main girder on the roof. While Suntimes applies a relatively rigid mounting over butylene tape or welds PVC-coated hat-rails directly on the roof foil, Centrosolar applies their self-developed and patented butt-strap joint system from membrane material.

- This installation version applied by Centrosolar involves three crucial advantages:

1. The installation can be made with membranes of various manufacturers, which allows a flexible use.

2. The system can be easily removed without damaging the membrane.

3. A very essential advantage of the Centrosolar system illustrates the non-rigid joint between the girder and hat-rails, as the rails can “work” in the buttstraps. Particularly with bigger facilities, all thermal tensions can be avoided, which guarantees a substantially longer lifespan of the installation system on the roof.

- Centrosolar has claimed at no time TF Multi Professional was the first module on the market with elevated thin-film-cells. In the press release, published by us, it says the module was the first module with elevated thin-film-cells in the Centrosolar portfolio. The other solar modules based on thin-film-cells, which Centrosolar dispels, are installed flat – without elevation.

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CENTROSOLAR'S PRESS RELEASE READ:

PRESS RELEASE

Pilot system with elevated thin-film modules on-grid since December

440 modules installed on car park roof in Hamburg

Hamburg, 19 January, 2010

The solar module manufacturer Centrosolar successfully concluded the first project with the new thin-film photovoltaic module TF Multi Professional. The system with a total output of 63.36 kWp consists of 440 modules and was installed onto the roof of the BGW head office car park (institution for statutory accident insurance and prevention in the health and welfare services) in Hamburg-Wandsbek. The grid connection was already completed in December so the operator could still profit of the higher feed-in tariff.

The installation of the PV system took place after the total redevelopment of the building. Elektro Mittendorf GmbH from Hamburg installed the PV-system and connected it to the low voltage grid. As the car park of the institution is a flat roof building, the thin-film modules from Centrosolar – specifically developed for flat roofs - presented themselves as an ideal solution. Compared to other thin-film systems, the modules don’t lie flat on the roof but are elevated with an inclination of 11 degrees with a top-hat rail. The PV system was installed on two car park roofs, with two module fields each. A field consists of 22 units with 5 modules each. The total of 440 modules are aligned south. “Considering the sun exposure in Hamburg, we expect an annual output of 770 kWh/kWp”, says Dr. Josef Wrobel, Managing Director of Centrosolar. “That way 44.769 kg CO2 emission will be avoided.“ The modules cover 75% of the roof area. “We advised against a total cover of the roof, as the front roof area of the car park is shadowed by the existing office building of BGW”, says Carsten Gonsior, Managing Director of Elektro Mittendorf GmbH.

The attachment of the system onto the synthetic roofing membranes was achieved by an innovative and patented buttstrap joint system, recently developed by Centrosolar. The elevated cells are carried by a metal sheet, mounted onto a top-hat-rail system. The top-hat-rail has specially integrated slits, where fittingly cut buttstraps are passed through, made from the same material as the roof sheet. The buttstraps are subsequently fused with the roof sheet, making penetration impossible.

Centrosolar developed the system TF Multi Professional last autumn. It is the first module in the thin-film area, where cells are installed with an inclination. Every module is 5.6 metres long and 0.45 meters wide, where five modules form one unit. The nominal output of a module is 144 Wp. The light weight system, at only 6 kg/m² is even suitable for roofs with small load reserve.

Caption: PV system with thin-film modules by Centrosolar on the roof of BGW head office in Hamburg.

About Centrosolar

Centrosolar AG is a 100% subsidiary of the Centrosolar Group AG/Munich. The organisation is one of the leading suppliers and manufacturers of small photovoltaic systems for private homes and larger systems for industrial roofs. Other products are components such as solar glass and mounting systems, solar modules (crystalline and thin-film), inverters, as well as building-integrated solar systems and European-wide project planning of solar systems for the roofs of industrial properties and for free-standing installation. The organisation has its own module factories in Wismar and Paderborn. 1000 employees in several European countries and the USA generated a revenue of 333 Million Euro in 2008. There are subsidiaries in Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Switzerland, Netherlands and the States.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Please send me a specimen copy in case of publication.
_____________________________________

Press contact:

CENTROSOLAR AG

Manuela Jakobi

Press officer
Otto-Stadler-Str. 23
33100 Paderborn
Germany

Phone: +49 5251 50050 0
Fax: +49 5251 50050 10
Internet: www.centrosolar.com
E-Mail: manuela.jakobi@centrosolar.com

If you don’t want to receive further press releases, send an email to presse@centrosolar.com .

Head Office and Local Court: Hamburg / HRB 102375
Management Board: Dr. Josef Wrobel, Günther Wühr, Bernhard Pawlik
Chairman of Supervisory Board: Dr. Axel Müller-Groeling

ECD Fan said

27 January 2010
PLEASE SEE EDITOR\S RESPONSE ABOVE [ed.]

RenewableEnergyFocus and the author of this article should be ashamed for being so ignorant about thin-film and publishing such an outright lie. TF Multi Professional is simply a copy of Suntimes' LBM-PVL product installed since 2007, thus Centrosolar could not have developed it last autumn. See the references here: http://www.suntimes-solar.de/en/referenzen.html . And Kalzip has had a similar product, for metal roofs, at least since 2006 (see page 6 of their 2006 brochure: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0DZkzLqH2XLMGRkNzMyYjktZmNhZS00NTRmLWIxN2YtNWYyOWY3MDQ1NzM3&hl=en )

And, obviously, TF Multi Professional is not the first module in the "solar thin-film area, where cells are installed with an inclination," as over 90% of the thin-film modules manufactured over the past 20 years have been installed with inclination (note than more than 90% of thin-film modules are glass modules, be they CdTe, a-Si, or CIGS).

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