Vipa Speed7 used in solar cell production

Grenzebach Maschinenbau is using Speed7 CPUs and touch panels from Vipa for plant automation and visualisation of state-of-the-art assembly line of thin-film cells.

At its various manufacturing plants around the world Grenzebach Maschinenbau produces the coated glass panels that make it possible to convert sunlight into electricity.

The engineers at Grenzebach Maschinenbau recognise the need for high-quality and high-performance production plants to supply complex photovoltaic technologies.

Due to the increasing need for electricity from renewable energy sources, demand for high-performance photovoltaic systems is growing.

The latest TPV (Thin Film Photovoltaic) system from Grenzebach offers a complete plant system for the manufacture of thin-film cells.

However, production is being held back due to a shortage of the carrier material, silicon.

Glass-based thin-film modules represent a more environmentally-friendly alternative.

Compared to silicon, glass is an important environmental alternative, since it is considerably cheaper and more readily available.

In the new production plants, just three single processes are needed to give float glass its nanometre-thick coating for use as a carrier material.

This glass is laminated to make it more durable.

Laminating in itself is already widespread in this process, however, laminating photovoltaic coated glass is challenging, since the glass is black rather than transparent.

As a result, the development of a new laminating process became necessary.

The motivation behind this development was to design the photovoltaic panels economically and, by the year 2010, reduce the manufacturing costs per Watt peak (Wp) by 35 per cent.

This would then allow producers of regenerative energy to compete with nuclear energy in the future.

In order to achieve this challenging aim, the processes are continually being redeveloped and optimised.

Grenzbach's plants achieve an annual output of around 65 megawatts.

The new generation of machines is intended to achieve a 15-fold output, thereby exceeding the 1-gigawatt mark.

These complex processes require a high-performance, high-speed automation technology, combined with user-friendly, modern visualisation, all provided at an economical cost.

These requirements are suited to the Speed7 CPUs and touch panels from Vipa.

Even during construction of the TPV systems, it was clear that in order to ensure a problem-free production process, a high-performance network of control systems was required.

A total of 15 decentralised processes needed to be controlled, monitored centrally and displayed on all operating and control stations.

In order to be able to meet these high requirements, the design engineers at Grenzebach Maschinenbau chose the Speed7 PLCs from Vipa.

After having carried out extensive tests, the engineers at Grenzebach were convinced that the high performance of the Speed7 PLC system, which has the world's fastest processor for programming with Step7, was the perfect solution.

The complete TPV system is controlled using the Vipa 315SN/Net PLC.

Using the integrated Ethernet CP343 lean processors, the CPUs communicate both with each other and also with the redundant CPU 317SN/NET master controller.

The integrated CP343 processes up to 64 individual connections and the Speed7 processor technology offers high performance.

The large integrated program and load memory offers sufficient storage space for the program and data handling.

If required, this memory can be expanded instantaneously, up to 8MB, using Memory Configuration Cards (MCC) without having to change the CPUs.

The price-performance ratio of the Speed7 CPUs was also a key factor in multiple PLC systems being integrated into each machine.

The peripheral area was completely populated using Vipa modules.

The digital and analogue IO modules from the 300V range, offered a connection to various sensors and actuators.

Additionally, a number of special Siemens S7-300 modules can be operated in combination with Vipa CPUs.

Grenzebach also relies on the quality of the Vipa visualisation product range.

Every TPV system is equipped with a total of 22 control and monitoring panels.

Each panel is fitted with a 10.4in touch panel, ensuring sufficient overview and control.

The Ethernet networking makes it possible to monitor and control the entire production process from any of the workstations.

The Scada visualisation software utilised was the popular Movicon package, used by thousands of companies worldwide, which is the standard for Vipa touch panels.

The development interface for Scada and HMI applications creates projects simply and quickly, without limitation of variables.

During development and commissioning, a Vipa support team specialising in Movicon was on hand to offer advice.

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