Driving the thin film movement forward San Francisco, USA, 28-29 April 2009
Introduction l Why Attend? l Agenda l Speaking Opportunities l Who Will You Meet? l Sponsorship Opportunities l Partners l Venue l Register

	Bernhard Dimmler, Chief Executive Officer, Würth Elektronik Research, Managing Director, Research & Development Würth Solar

What does your company do within the Solar sector? 
Würth Solar is producing CIS modules in a quantity of 30 MW per year in the highest quality in thin films today and is selling complete PV systems in the market. 

How important is the development of thin film solar in the US? 
Thin films have a big chance to reduce fast production costs for PV modules and to take over big shares of the market worldwide. This has already started and all efforts have to be done in the short, medium and long scale to take the cost reduction potentials and to make it reality on a big scale. In US there are already only a few companies producing thin film PV modules.

What do you think are the most exciting innovations in this area at the moment? 
Most exiting are the following:

First Solar has shown that it is possible and reality to produce at a level of 1 $/W.

Wurth Solar has shown that it is possible to produce CIS in large volume at comparable efficiency level as crystalline Silicon.

Most exiting innovations may be non vacuum deposition technologies and non glass technologies. For both there is a huge cost potential but proofs of concepts are still missing; at least with proofable specifications and on a comparable efficiency level as the best thin film modules existing.

What is the biggest challenge facing the sector in the short term (1-4 years)? 
Thin films have to show scalabilty on a high quality and low cost level.

What is the biggest challenge facing the sector in the long term (5-10 years)?
The transfer and realization of lab results in large volume manufacturing is the biggest  and most important  challenge. New concepts and materials have to be developed on lab scale to be transfered to industry later.