History

Our History

Terra Solar developed from two lineages. One is the old fashioned power electronics company, VKI, which was a direct successor of Ganz. Ganz, founded in 1844, was one of the leading electric industrial enterprises of Europe. Some of Ganz and VKI's achievements include playing a pioneering role in the European propagation of the standard gauge, three-phase, system railway electric traction and electrification. I nventions of fundamental components, such as the transformer, are also associated with the firm's name. The R&D center for Ganz was nationalized by the communist government in 1949, but it was privatized again by Terra Solar in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall.			3 Phase System Locomotive
Terra Solar's second lineage is comprised of the scientists who were involved in R&D in photovoltaics and who developed thin-film amorphous silicon (a-Si) photovoltaic technology at RCA Labs. In the 1980s, Terra Solar's personnel, while working at Chronar, another thin-film PV company, developed the manufacturing process and equipment for the production of a-Si photovoltaics. This process was dubbed the "box carrier" concept. The box carrier concept was responsible for more than 60% of the a-Si solar modules produced at the time.			Amorphous Silicon Structure
Terra Solar is currently pursuing the commercial manufacturing of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) photovoltaics. We believe that because CIGS has the lowest manufacturing cost of all photovoltaic materials and also has higher energy efficiencies than a-Si, CIGS will be the primary technology of choice for photovoltaics in the decades to come. urrently, CIGS modules have only been tested and fabricated in low quantities. We expect to begin manufacturing CIGS in commercial quantities by 2006.			Alabama PV Power Station