SAN ANTONIO -- In a new KENS 5 series called Made in San Antonio, we feature innovative products and services originating right here in the Alamo City.
Mission Solar is the only solar panel manufacturer in Texas to go from cell to panel (or module) all in one place, in their 320,000-square-foot facility.
"It takes between 18 and 24 hours to manufacture one module, and that's beginning at the silicone wafer to the finished module," said Laura Waldrum of Mission Solar.
The process starts with a silicone cell or "wafer."
"We are inspecting the wafer for quality and surface cracks or chips," said James Whittemore, process engineer at Mission Solar.
From there the wafers are loaded into carriers and diffused, or "doped," to have just the right amount of conductors and semi-conductors to produce circuitry. Each wafer goes through a multi-step cleaning process and is inspected before panel assembly begins.
"The machine is taking the cells it's transferring some ribbon to the three pieces of metal you see and soldering them together," Mission Solar process engineer David Haverlah said.
The metal connects the cells together which are placed in six rows of 12 on each panel. The panel then gets laminated and framed, before the junction is added, which converts sunlight into usable power. Then they're ready to go to three solar farms. Eventually there will be 14 farms here, bringing a mega-amount of renewable energy to San Antonio.
The solar farm just off Binz-Engleman on the northeast side of the city features close to 18,000 solar panels that produce enough energy to power close to 800 homes.
"We committed to 500 megawatts of solar by the end of 2016," said Paul Flanagan of CPS Energy.
That's enough power for roughly 100,000 homes, and is over 100 times the size of the solar farm called Alamo 2.
"In terms of producing environmentally friendly solar power has to factor largely into the equation, and exciting enough for Texas we happen to have the resources to support it," said John Huffaker of OCI.
