New Standard In PV Industry: Solar Float Glass With Antireflective Coating

Dr.-Ing. Tobias Plessing
Dr. Hansjoerg Weis
INTERPANE AG,

PV producers have a strongly increasing demand for high transmission glass. So far this has been fulfilled mainly with solar patterned glass. Solar float glass has been introduced to the market recently.

The objective of the present work is to present a solar float glass solution for the PV industry, which fulfills the future requirements, such as cost effectiveness, higher performance, and better processability.

With float glass large quantities and formats can be efficiently produced and processed in subsequent production steps (e.g. cutting, grinding, tempering).

By an improved, additional antireflective coating an increased lifetime by corrosion protection and a higher solar transmission is achieved.

Additionally, the influence of the production on glass properties like mechanical stability, flatness, thickness tolerances, and homogeneity are highlighted.

Enhanced logistics and the influence of cutting losses are discussed as important factors within the supply chain.

All these attributes are discussed in comparison between state of the art patterned glass and new solar float glass with antireflective coatings.
A new possible quality rating of solar transmission for the PV industry is suggested.

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The Authors

	Dr. Tobias Plessing Interpane Glas Industrie AG Read more
	Dr. Hansjörg Weis Head of Coating Development in R&D INTERPANE Entwicklungs- und Beratungsgesellschaft mbH Dr. Weis has been working for more than ten years in the field of sputter coating and optical characterization, with the focus on low-E and solar control coatings. He is working for INTERPANE R+D sinc... Read more