Freeene Second Solar GmbH

The Company

 

Freeene Second Solar GmbH was founded by experienced managers of the solar industry in Halle, Germany, in March 2010 named Second Solar Century GmbH. The founders have one clear vision: Through developing an innovative thin-film technology based on the semiconductor cadmium telluride (CdTe), they want to become the cost efficiency leader on the photovoltaic market. Freeene Second Solar GmbH is convinced that their technology has the potential to achieve the lowest manufacturing costs per watt peak. At the same time, the modules are supposed to deliver a very high degree of efficiency compared to other thin-film technologies. With this technology, it will be possible to earlier achieve grid parity and, thus, to make solar energy independent from government subsidies.

Freeene Second Solar GmbH is planning to establish production facilities for solar modules in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Due to the existing photovoltaic cluster in the "Solarvalley Central Germany", this location offers unique advantages. As a traditional location for the chemical and by now also for the solar industry, this region offers a wide choice of qualified personnel. This applies both for skilled workers and scientific personnel as the University of Halle-Wittenberg, the nearby University of Applied Sciences in Merseburg, and the University of Applied Sciences Anhalt in Köthen already offer related degree programs.

Technology and Products

Freeene Second Solar works with a thin-film technology based on the semiconductor cadmium telluride (CdTe). The use of this material offers numerous advantages:

• Due to an extremely limited material usage and a very stable manufacturing process, the modules may be produced at significantly lower costs than with other technologies, such as the crystalline silicon technology.
• With the appropriate amount of production capacity (> 50 mega watt peaks (MWp)), manufacturing costs of clearly below one euro per Wp may be achieved. This enables the production of solar electricity without government subsidies at competitive prices.
• Even with poor lighting conditions and high temperatures, the modules are reliable to produce electricity, thus, offering clear advantages over other technologies.
• The so-called energy payback time is shorter than for all other technologies. This means that a CdTe module requires even less time than other modules to deliver the amount of energy that is needed for its production. Therefore, CdTe modules have the most positive CO2 balance of all PV technologies.
• As an additional benefit, the technology does not only add to safely storing the heavy metal cadmium, a waste product of zinc smelting, in the stable CdTe compound, it even uses it for producing clean energy.

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