Two LG Affiliates To Compete In Thin-Film Market

Conventionally, the idea of fighting amongst yourselves is generally frowned upon. But for two LG affiliates, LG Electronics and LG Display, it’s more of a race than any sort of fight. And why not? Some heated competition in Korea may in fact benefit the global solar market, especially in a thin-film sector that is expected to take market share from crystalline silicon panels within the next few years.

LG is a global leader in electronics, from cell phones to plasma televisions, and its two affiliates have some valuable experience in solar-related fields, such as liquid-crystal displays (LCD) and light-emitting diodes (LED). The technology is fairly similar and both companies are hoping to use that experience to their advantage.

LG Electronics has a bit of a head start. They’ve already developed a thin-film solar cell which broke the world record for efficiency by reaching 11.1 percent in recent tests, just beating out top thin-film firm Oerlikon of Switzerland’s 11 percent efficient panel. LG Electronics will manufacture both thin-film and silicon-based solar cells and plan to enter mass production early next year.

LG Display currently has panels with conversion efficiencies of about 8 percent – a slower start, but the company is nonetheless confident that they’ll be putting out thin-film solar cells with 14 percent efficiency by 2012.

Source: JoongAng Daily

Posted on August 20th in Solar Products by Dan.