The Mechanical Ballet of a Solar Cell Production Line

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Applied Materials launched its new Applied Baccini® Pegaso™ solar cell manufacturing platform today. The Pegaso system represents the new state of the art in solar cell manufacturing and will help to drive the solar industry into the future.

But that’s not why I’m posting this video. I’m posting it because the Pegaso system is one of the most elegant pieces of machinery I’ve ever seen.

The video follows solar wafers as they pass through the system and are transformed into finished solar cells, ready to be packaged into panels and installed on roofs, parking lots and solar farms around the world.

You can also view this video in glorious HD.

A few statistics:

One Pegaso system can print, test and sort over 20 million cells a year
That’s a finished solar cell every 1.5 seconds
Produces enough generating capacity each year to power 10,000 typical US homes*
Placed end-to-end, one year’s cells would stretch for over 2,000 miles

If you’d like to know more about how the Pegaso system will drive the future of solar electricity, please visit our web site for a technical briefing, photographs and more videos.

*US Energy Information Administration, 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey

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Comments

Wafers

Submitted by Charles and Rachel on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 10:24.

Stunning and so beautiful.

Nice

Submitted by Gee Hoey on Thu, 09/01/2011 - 10:19.

I design lots of robotic system and this is one of the coolest automation equipment I have seen so far. Good job. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, that is an impressive

Submitted by David Wong on Wed, 08/31/2011 - 19:12.

Wow, that is an impressive piece of equipment. The improvements made to existing Baccini equipment really highlight the expertise of the parent company Applied Materials - high throughput precise metallization, a very elegant flip for double-sided contacts, and the metrology and test capabilities integrated into the whole machine. Assuming they can handle about 60-80MW per year, that is a lot of new screen printers that AMAT will have to make.