As part of plans to test various solar technologies, Mexico’s state-owned utility CFE earlier this year commissioned Iberdrola Ingenieria & Construcción Mexico to build the Cerro Prieto array using several competing modules – including Solar Frontier, contracted to supply 1.5MW, and Spain’s Siliken, which last year opened a module assembly plant in Tijuana.
The Cerro Prieto project, in the Mexican state of Baja California, will be owned and operated by CFE, and is due on line by the end of the year.
Solar Frontier says it expects its copper, indium, selenide (CIS) modules, produced in Japan, to perform better than the others used at the sun-baked Cerro Prieto site, given the lower temperature coefficient inherent to some thin-film technologies.
“This