Future Trend: The Durable and Lightweight Solar Stand
2017-05-27

Renewable Energy, wind, solar, tide, wave, water, geothermal, and biomass, plays a substantial role in preserving a sustainable living environment. Little or no global warming emission has become a worldwide consensus. The diverse sources and inexhaustible features of renewable energy give it great potentials to provide electricity for all human beings, especially solar energy, which is possible wherever the sunlight is sufficient.

 

Silicon still accounts for a major proportion of materials in solar cell manufacturing. Basic materials of solar cells can be classified into three categories, silicon, polysilicon, and amorphous silicon. Regarding conversion efficiency of the three types of solar cells, silicon-based solar cells perform the best whereas amorphous silicon the worst. However, costs for manufacturing silicon-based solar cells is also the highest among the three. While analyzing cost structure of a PV module, we can find out that cost of solar cell accounts for 55 percent, inverter 13 percent, solar frame 11 percent, other components 16 percent, and construction 5 percent.

 

Solar stands, which account for the third costly item in a PV module, are made mainly from HDG steel, stainless steel, and aluminum alloy. Although those mental materials of solar stands are anti-corrosive processed, due to the nature of the installation location of PV module, solar stands still are prone to decay after a long period of outdoor exposure, especially those installed by the coast. Additionally, one pair of solar stand weights around 16 to 30 kilometers, which causes significant safety issues for rooftop PV modules. Therefore, durability and lightweight are the key trends for the future solar stand. 

 

In order to solve the corrosion and heavyweight issues of mental solar stands, corporations in North America and Europe have developed plastic solar stands to replace the traditional mental stands. Taiwan, as one of the biggest PV module manufacturing regions in the world, needs to sustain its leading position in development of advanced solar stands. The composite material development of TCNT has successfully integrated carbon nanotube into plastics, developing solid and durable plastic solar stands.

 

Mr. Lin, Director of the composite material department of TCNT states that the strength of TCNT plastic solar stands is as strong as the aluminum alloy ones but only one-third of the weights. The highly durable feature of the plastic solar stands saves the cost for additional anti-corrosion process, and its lightweight and plasticity not only provides design flexibility to fit into different building appearances but also reduces floor structural loads.

 

Eddy Tsai, the CEO of TCNT further states that its plastic solar stands have adopted by worldwide solar module manufacturers, estimated to generate 10 billion revenues in 2 years and reach 100 billion market values in 5 years. Moreover, we hope to promote Taiwan manufacturers’ competitive edges in product design and R&D, escalating adding values of MIT products for solar power generation, further enhancing our leading position in the worldwide solar industry.

 

2014/04/24
Source of the source: chinatimes
http://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/20140424001596-260210