ERDM Solar and SCHMID Group concluded a contract for establishing a new cell and module manufacturing line in San Andrés Tuxtla, expanding the existing module manufacturing capacity of 60MW to 170MW annual output of cells and modules. Alejandro Caballero Robles, CEO of ERDM Solar, is certain that the project with its scheduled start of production in Q3 2015 has a perfect timing to meet Mexico's growing need for new sources of energy.

"The local electricity demand has exploded during the last years and PV is the only fast and sustainable solution for a quick decentralized grid expansion. Highest energy harvest at lowest cost and space requirements is crucial for developing the country into a major player in affordable renewable energy supply. The SCHMID bifacial multi bus bar technology is the perfect solution due to the much higher energy harvest as in comparison to standard modules.

Established in 2007, ERDM Solar was the first module manufacturer in South America delivering outstanding module quality to the market. Goal of the expansion is to jointly demonstrate the superb performance of bifacial modules in this lighthouse project as well as to meet the growing demand of ERDM Solar customers in South and North America. The new combined cell and module facility will be also the world's first zero carbon footprint plant combining solar power and SCHMID's vanadium redox flow battery technology.

SCHMID Group, a global supplier of integrated solutions for the entire PV value chain from Silicon to modules, is very pleased about this first order for a GEMINUS bifacial cell and multi bus bar module production line with an annual capacity of 110MW including the new multi bus bar module technology. The SCHMID's GEMINUS bifacial cell technology enables low cost manufacturing of multi and mono bifacial cells featuring over 30% higher energy yield (kWh/kWp). It combines outstanding manufacturing simplicity based on standard tools with highest efficiencies on all common p-type base material. The resulting multi crystalline based bifacial module operates at efficiency equivalents of over 18% and hence has a 7-10 USc / Wp BOS advantage in comparison to conventional multi modules.

Christian Schmid, President and CEO at the SCHMID Group, regards ERDM Solar's trust in SCHMID as evidence of the company's right product strategy: "We have received this order within 3 months after GEMINUS has been introduced at the PVSEC in Amsterdam, which is a clear proof that the market has just waited for a new technology evolution. In the past years efficiency improvement in PV industry has been steady, but in the order of 0.2% annually.

Now the GEMINUS technology boosts the efficiency by more than 1% without adding additional costs and hence will be for sure a game changer in the PV industry. According to ERDM the investment decision has been made due to the observation that the market has changed from a buyer‘s to a seller's market for non-Chinese and Taiwanese high end solar products. Hence it is exactly the right timing for the upstream integration".

SCHMID Group | Gebr. SCHMID GmbH
www.schmid-group.com