Mainz, January 16, 2012 – Effective January 1, 2012, Jörg Michael Henkel (53) took over the Board level position on Sales and Marketing at SCHOTT Solar AG. The experienced manager is now responsible for the leading manufacturer of high-quality modules for the solar industry’s global brand presence.

Henkel joins the company from Metabowerken in Nürtingen, where he most recently served as Vice President of Global Marketing and Sales. Previous to that he held sales and marketing positions with various companies at the European level. During this time, Henkel was responsible for several successful strategic realignments of sales organizations and managed to achieve sustained increases in sales and profits.

“With Mr. Henkel, we have recruited an experienced industrial helmsman who will be of great help to us in achieving our market objectives, even in choppy waters,” noted Dr. Martin Heming, CEO of SCHOTT Solar AG, in welcoming his new Board member colleague.

According to Henkel, an economics graduate, the quality of a company’s customer relationships and the creation of a lasting brand preference are extremely important at a time when products are becoming increasingly comparable. As he puts it, “We consider our customers, in other words distributors and installers, also partners. By working together with them, we create win-win situations. At the same time, it is important that our brand identity and communication with the markets meet the same high standards for quality as our products. We will continue to approach all of our markets in a self-confident manner, but without acting cocky in public,” Henkel notes in describing key aspects of his role.

“We are and will remain a high-quality German vendor and will seek to prove that it is possible for a company to uphold this claim and assert itself in both the domestic and global market, despite declines in market prices and headwind from various directions,” the new Board member confidently stated.

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Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Robert Kerschensteiner
Agentur
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 932
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 22
robert.kerschensteiner@ffpr.de
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290 employees at the site in Jena are affected by this move. SCHOTT is currently evaluating the prospects of offering further employment for the respective employees in other areas of the company. At the same time, the company is engaged in an intensive dialogue with social partners and striving to come up with socially acceptable solutions. The goal is to avoid having to dismiss staff for operational reasons.

Developments in the global solar market have made restructuring necessary. Overcapacities and severe declines in prices, particularly with wafers and cells, have been the dominating factors. Price pressures are being further intensified by Asian competitors for the most part. They lowered their prices for modules once again by more than 40% just like they did in 2009.

As Dr. Martin Heming, CEO of SCHOTT Solar AG, puts it: “We need to stop pursuing upstream stages of the value creation chain that only generate losses and concentrate on the fast-growing module and project business instead. With the help of this new strategy, excellent products and the strong ‘SCHOTT Solar’ brand, we are in an excellent position to be able to operate successfully in the difficult solar market. We are quite optimistic because we managed to sell more modules than ever before last year and increased our market share. We plan to continue along these same lines in 2012.”

The new strategy will be rounded off by opening a technology center for monocrystalline wafers at the site in Jena. Manufacturing of thin-film photovoltaic modules will also continue in Jena. In other words, the city will remain a solar site.

High innovation potential and a growth strategy in the new focus areas

Current studies confirm that the industry is suffering from overcapacities, but still project global growth of up to 20 percent per year over the next few years. SCHOTT Solar plans to pursue innovation in order to leverage this potential. The company will be further extending its technological lead by launching its new SCHOTT PERFORM MONO high-performance module in the first half of 2012. In addition, SCHOTT Solar is also engaged in successful joint research efforts on various technologies aimed at making solar energy even more powerful and cost-effective.

Furthermore, several major projects are currently being realized in Germany, Thailand, India, Greece, Italy and France. At the end of 2011, the company completed construction of a solar park in Saxony-Anhalt that features 24,000 modules.

These decisions will have no effect whatsoever on the field of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) that SCHOTT Solar is the market and technology leader in with its receivers for solar power plants that employ parabolic trough technology.

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Mainz, December 12, 2011 – SCHOTT Solar AG has managed to reach an important milestone by combining several of its most recent development achievements. The company was able to use standard production processes to manufacture a high-efficiency solar cell that contains no silver, whose front side only requires electroplated copper contacts. The backside is passivated using PERC technology and aluminum screen printing. This new type of cell achieved an efficiency of almost 20 percent on industrial wafer size 156 mm x 156 mm. Fraunhofer ISE confirmed this value in a measurement commissioned by SCHOTT Solar on December 8, 2011.

The new cell combines several innovative technologies. Just recently, SCHOTT Solar was able to achieve efficiency of 18 percent in the research project Las VeGaS while using nickel-copper plating on the front side of a multicrystalline cell. At the same time, this new cell concept contains also PERC (Passivated Emitter and Rear Contact), the backside passivation technique used in the record monocrystalline cell as published recently. This SCHOTT technology is known for it’s high efficiency potential and low-cost production processes, especially in combination with copper plating. If long-term stability can be demonstrated successfully, it will no longer be necessary to use expensive silver in cell manufacturing.

“This new cell represents a real milestone on it’s way to achieving higher output at lower production costs,” explains Dr. Axel Metz, Director of Solar Cell Development at SCHOTT Solar. “We have been exploring every possible aspect of this technology over the last few years and have made important progress these last few months. Now, we were successful in combining these excellent results in a new cell. The next step will be to provide actual proof of its long-term stability,” he adds.

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Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Alexandra Mainka
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 86
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 30
alexandra.mainka@ffpr.de
http://www.ffpress.net

Mainz, December 12, 2011 – The development department of SCHOTT Solar AG is making good progress toward bringing its SCHOTT PERFORM MONO high-performance module into the market. Product launch is scheduled for second quarter of 2012. The prototype was built by using newest cell technology combined with established module manufacturing processes and achieved an outstanding performance of 289 watts. A value that has already been confirmed independently.

The company impressively demonstrates its technological leadership in this field by developing this new module. It is based on a new, industrially mature high-performance cell technology that delivers efficiency levels of around 20 percent. SCHOTT Solar developed this technology while cooperating successfully with Roth & Rau AG (MAiA® PECVD-AlOx back side passivation) and Schmid Group (front side improved by using selective emitters). With proven module technology 60 of these cells produce an output of 289 watts peak. The prototype already exceeded significantly the highest performance class of 280 W, the company’s initial objective. This was confirmed by independent measurements of Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg, Germany, performed at SCHOTT Solar’s request on December 8, 2011.

An overview of preliminary technical specifications of the SCHOTT PERFORM MONO is summarized as follows:

• Cell type: 60 156 x 156 mm monocrystalline cells
• Front panel: low-iron 3.2 mm solar glass
• Backside panel: layers of foil
• Performance classes: up to 280 Wp
• Cell efficiency: approx. 20 percent
• Weight: approx. 20 kg
• Frame: 50 mm, black

Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Alexandra Mainka
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 86
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 30
alexandra.mainka@ffpr.de
http://www.ffpress.net

Mainz, December 12, 2011 – The development department of SCHOTT Solar AG is making good progress toward bringing its SCHOTT PERFORM MONO high-performance module into the market. Product launch is scheduled for second quarter of 2012. The prototype was built by using newest cell technology combined with established module manufacturing processes and achieved an outstanding performance of 289 watts. A value that has already been confirmed independently.

The company impressively demonstrates its technological leadership in this field by developing this new module. It is based on a new, industrially mature high-performance cell technology that delivers efficiency levels of around 20 percent. SCHOTT Solar developed this technology while cooperating successfully with Roth & Rau AG (MAiA® PECVD-AlOx back side passivation) and Schmid Group (front side improved by using selective emitters). With proven module technology 60 of these cells produce an output of 289 watts peak. The prototype already exceeded significantly the highest performance class of 280 W, the company’s initial objective. This was confirmed by independent measurements of Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg, Germany, performed at SCHOTT Solar’s request on December 8, 2011.

An overview of preliminary technical specifications of the SCHOTT PERFORM MONO is summarized as follows:

• Cell type: 60 156 x 156 mm monocrystalline cells
• Front panel: low-iron 3.2 mm solar glass
• Backside panel: layers of foil
• Performance classes: up to 280 Wp
• Cell efficiency: approx. 20 percent
• Weight: approx. 20 kg
• Frame: 50 mm, black

Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Alexandra Mainka
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 86
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 30
alexandra.mainka@ffpr.de
http://www.ffpress.net

Ilfeld/Mainz, December 6, 2011 – Consumers will soon be able to rely on clean solar electricity from the Southern Harz now that Mainz Solar GmbH is installing a solar system in Ilfeld that will feature 24,000 modules. Mainz Solar is a joint venture between SCHOTT Solar and Stadtwerke Mainz AG. 3 S Solarstrom GmbH is both the project developer and the general contractor for this solar park. Following its expected completion in December of 2011, the system will generate about 5.25 gigawatt-hours of electricity each year and feed it into E.ON Thüringen’s grid. In purely mathematical terms, this would allow for the entire population of Ilfeld of around 3,000 to be supplied with green electricity. In addition, roughly 3,200 tons of CO2 emissions can now be avoided each year.

“This system sends a signal that extends well beyond Ilfeld and the Southern Harz and proves that, with the appropriate will, it is already possible, at least in mathematical terms, to supply 100% of the population with environmentally friendly electricity. Ilfeld has good reason to feel proud that its name will now be associated with a good share of pioneering work,” notes the mayor of the community, René Schröter-Appenrodt (CDU).

The two Managing Directors of Mainz Solar are also quite pleased with their collaboration with the community of Ilfeld, the property owners and 3 S Solarstrom GmbH: “Thanks to how smoothly the respective parties have been working together, we will be able to complete this project on schedule,” Stephan Krome and Burkhard Söhngen both note.

High performance for a lifetime

The products that are being put to use in the solar park in Ilfeld are SCHOTT PERFORM POLY type solar modules. These modules are known for their high resistance to adverse weather conditions and were awarded the rating of “Very Good” by Germany’s Öko-Test magazine (edition 4/2010). In any case, the entire population of Ilfeld can rest assured that these modules will be able to generate a high yield for many years to come. After all, the manufacturer, SCHOTT Solar, has over 53 years of experience in solar technology and offers a 25-year linear performance guarantee on its glass-foil modules. Through its business unit “SCHOTT Solar Power Projects”, this manufacturer supplies modules for projects and offers its expertise on planning or even full-scale realization of solar power plants.

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Further information is available under www.schottsolar.de and www.stadtwerke-mainz.de/

Further information on the test report referred to in this press release and the performance guarantee are available on the Internet under
www.schottsolar.com/de/produkte/testergebnisse/oeko-test/ www.schottsolar.com/de/produkte/leistungsgarantie/

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Stadtwerke Mainz AG (SWM) has grown from being a traditional power supplier to become a future-oriented group of companies that offers services for virtually all areas of life through its subsidiaries and shareholdings. Its core businesses include economical and environmentally friendly operation of electrical power, gas and water grids, water collection, waste treatment and public transportation. The SWM Group also operates several power plants that generate electricity, steam and long-distance heating and is extremely active in the area of renewable energy. The company achieved sales of around 500 million euros and employed 1,360 people in 2010. In recent years, the SWM Group and its subsidiaries and shareholdings have invested over 150 million euros in renewable energy projects.

Stadtwerke Mainz AG
Michael Theurer
Pressesprecher
Tel: +49 (0)6131/12-6060
michael.theurer@stadtwerke-mainz.de
www.stadtwerke-mainz.de

Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Alexandra Mainka
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 86
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 30
alexandra.mainka@ffpr.de
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Mainz, December 6, 2011 – A joint research project under the aegis of the Belgian imec has succeeded in increasing the efficiency of back-contact solar cells to 23.3 percent. The fabricated cells employ the so-called IBC technology (Interdigitated Back Contact). SCHOTT Solar AG has been supporting this project from the very beginning and is actively involved in this research achievement. Among other things, guest researchers from SCHOTT Solar work on site.

“We congratulate the imec team on their outstanding results that provide us with important insights for the development of next generation of silicon solar cells,” notes Dr. Axel Metz, Director of Cell Development at SCHOTT Solar AG. Based in Belgium, imec is one of Europe’s largest research centers on nanoelectronics and microelectronics. In 2009, imec established a program aimed at lowering the manufacturing costs of solar cells and reducing the amount of silicon needed per watt by half. Yet another objective is to achieve efficiencies significantly higher than 20 percent with these new cells. Besides SCHOTT Solar, other cell manufacturers, manufacturers of production equipment, and suppliers of raw materials participate in this program.

Fraunhofer ISE’s calibration laboratory in Freiburg, Germany, confirmed that efficiency of 23.3 percent on November 15, 2011. In IBC solar cells, the metal contacts are located solely on the backside. This results in lower optical losses, and therefore allows for higher efficiencies to be achieved compared to conventional solar cells. These cells also have a more attractive appearance. Together with improvements that have been made to the electrical connectors, the electrical losses that occur inside a solar module can now be reduced quite significantly. To achieve this, SCHOTT Solar is already working on innovative interconnection technologies for solar modules.

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Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Alexandra Mainka
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 86
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 30
alexandra.mainka@ffpr.de
http://www.ffpress.net

In addition, the company announced excellent progress toward putting its newly developed high-efficiency technologies to use in market-ready products. Nevertheless, the entire solar industry still finds itself facing severe price pressures and considerable overcapacities. For this reason, SCHOTT Solar AG plans to adjust its production capacity in the area of cell manufacturing to suit current market conditions.

This measure will affect cell manufacturing at the site in Alzenau, Germany. The goal is to avoid terminations as much as possible. Alzenau will continue to serve as SCHOTT Solar’s Competence Center for Research & Development. As Dr. Martin Heming, CEO of SCHOTT Solar AG, explains, “SCHOTT Solar will be able to assert itself as a quality brand, even in a challenging market environment. Nevertheless, we must now establish the prerequisites that will allow us to remain a strong player in the solar market.”

SCHOTT Solar to remain a leading supplier of high-quality products

SCHOTT Solar will continue to serve its customers as a reliable supplier of premium solar modules known for their high quality and durability. In fact, SCHOTT Solar introduced new, high-efficiency technologies for both mono- and polycrystalline solar modules only recently. The company is currently developing these technologies for use in upcoming product models. For instance, the new solar module SCHOTT PERFORM MONO that includes performance classes of up to 280 watts peak is scheduled to be launched in the second quarter of 2012.

Successful expansion of the international project business

After establishing a strong position for its distribution business, SCHOTT Solar has also been successful in expanding its international project business. The business unit “SCHOTT Solar Power Projects” was able to complete numerous projects in 2011, in Thailand, India, Greece, Italy, France and Germany, for example. Other major projects are already in planning in different parts of the world. SCHOTT’s photovoltaic activities include everything from direct sales of modules to power plant customers to the development, realization and sale of turnkey power plants to investors.

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Mainz, November 25, 2011 – SCHOTT Solar AG and its project partners have already reached an important milestone in the research project Las VeGaS after only six months: a solar cell metalized with copper achieved an efficiency of 18.0 percent. A multicrystalline wafer from SCHOTT Solar AG that features standard screen-printed backside metallization serves as the basis. The goal of the Las VeGaS project is to largely replace the silver contacts that are commonly used on the front side of solar cells with less expensive nickel-copper plating. This would lower the manufacturing costs of front side metallization by more than half. SCHOTT Solar is working together with RENA GmbH and CiS Forschungsinstitut für Mikrosensorik und Photovoltaik GmbH in order to achieve this.

The special challenge involved in metalizing with nickel-copper plating is to prevent diffusion of the copper into the silicon solar cell, as this would reduce the carrier lifetime of the electrons and thus reduce the efficiency of the cell. For this reason, the project team has developed an electroplated nickel layer that serves as a diffusion barrier as well as the appropriate manufacturing techniques for applying both then nickel barrier and the copper contacts to the cell.

The project team has used the new “InCellPlate” technology of RENA to manufacture rather promising prototypes on standard industrial tools. These solar cells will now be used to fabricate test modules so that they can demonstrate their long-term stability in reliability tests. Furthermore, the project team is working on transfering these development successes to monocrystalline cells. Efficiency that exceeds 19 percent are expected.

The Las VeGaS method offers yet another advantage besides the lower costs for the raw material copper: the electroplated layers are environmentally friendly because they are free from both lead and solvents and thus meet the requirements of the European Union’s RoHS Directive. This places restrictions on the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic devices. It is now no longer necessary to use large amounts of expensive silver paste, because only a very thin electroplated silver layer is needed to solder the cells to the copper tabs to make a module. This, in turn, lowers the consumption of silver by at least 95 percent.

About the project partners

SCHOTT Solar, with its headquarters in Mainz, manufactures solar wafers, cells and modules and is a quality leader by international comparison. RENA GmbH, Gütenbach/Freiburg, is one of the largest suppliers of process technology for wet chemical applications, mainly for use in the photovoltaic industry. CiS Forschungsinstitut für Mikrosensorik und Photovoltaik GmbH from Erfurt is an institution dedicated to application-oriented research and development in the areas of silicon-based sensor technology, microsystems technology and photovoltaics. CiS serves both the public sector and industry, mainly SMEs. The Las VeGaS project that focuses on the long-term stability of front side metallization of solar cells using environmentally friendly electroplated layers, receives funding support from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the “Innovation Alliance on Photovoltaics”.

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Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Alexandra Mainka
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 86
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 30
alexandra.mainka@ffpr.de
http://www.ffpress.net

Mainz, November 25, 2011 – With "Quasimono", SCHOTT Solar has now developed a new technique for manufacturing full-square high-performance wafers that contain a high monocrystalline share that is significantly more cost-effective than the standard processes used in the past. The company has succeeded in using a modified conventional VGF process that is generally used to manufacture polycrystalline wafers to produce high-quality, quasi-monocrystalline wafers. In November 2011 Fraunhofer ISE confirmed in Freiburg efficiency of 19.9 percent after performing a measurement commissioned by SCHOTT Solar. In other words, SCHOTT Solar has achieved yet another important success in the area of development and thus made significant progress with respect to its plans to introduce the SCHOTT PERFORM MONO solar module in 2012.

What is so special about the new Quasimono technology that SCHOTT Solar has developed is that it combines the advantages of the Czochralski and VGF processes (See below for an explanation) in a single technique. In this case, the seed crystal is placed on the bottom of the crucible and partially melted. Quasi-monocrystalline growth then takes place by way of the Vertical Gradient Freeze or VGF technique. SCHOTT Solar has thus been able to produce pure monocrystalline wafers from an ingot on occasion. Similar attempts in the past had yielded wafers with a polycrystalline content, but not genuine monocrystals, however. The unique achievement by the employees of SCHOTT Solar lies in the development of a new process engineering technique and new furnace technology. The company’s development team is now working on refining this technique even further.

The 19.9 percent efficiency level confirmed by Fraunhofer ISE comes quite close to the record efficiency level that SCHOTT Solar had achieved only recently with a monocrystalline solar cell. The company has now managed to successfully transfer its high-performance concept, which SCHOTT Solar had developed while collaborating very successfully with Roth & Rau AG (backside passivation) and Schmid Group (front side selective emitters), over to less expensive Quasimono wafers. This research work was partially supported by funds from the German government as part of the "QUASIMONO" research project (grant no. FKZ 0325061).

Background information: Standard manufacturing techniques for solar wafers

The more homogeneous the crystal lattice of the wafer, the more efficiently the solar cell will be able to convert sunlight into electricity later on. The so-called Czochralski method is usually used to produce monocrystalline wafers. In this case, a seed crystal is dipped into a crucible that contains molten silicon. While rotating, the seed crystal is slowly drawn up to the top without interrupting its contact with the melt. The crystallizing material then takes on the even crystal structure of the seed crystal. A round "ingot" basically forms as a result of the turning motion. Its monocrystalline structure offers relatively high efficiency; however this technique is actually quite expensive. Furthermore, cutting square wafers also wastes silicon material.

Alternatively, the liquid silicon can be directionally solidified into a block inside the crucible and then sawn into razor-thin square wafers. Nevertheless, this so-called VGF method usually produces a heterogeneous crystal structure, in other words polycrystalline wafers that offer lower efficiency. The new Quasimono method developed by SCHOTT Solar combines the advantages of both processes and thus results in higher manufacturing output, which, in turn, reduces the costs.

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Fink & Fuchs Public Relations AG
Alexandra Mainka
Berliner Straße 164
65205 Wiesbaden
tel. +49 (0)611 - 74131 86
fax +49 (0)611 - 74131 30
alexandra.mainka@ffpr.de
http://www.ffpress.net