New trade group aims to meet needs of PV manufacturers and suppliers
The International Photovoltaic Equipment Association (IPVEA), founded just last year, is an independent organisation of 70 manufacturers and suppliers of photovoltaic (PV) fabrication equipment and related raw materials used in PV ingot, wafer, cell (crystalline and thin-film), and panel manufacturing.
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The association’s member companies (www.ipvea.com) represent the wide spectrum of equipment and materials including crystal growth, diffusion furnaces, glavanics, laminators, laser systems, materials handling, metallization, printing, process integration, solar simulators, substrate handling, testing, vacuum systems, waste gas abatement, wet chemical systems, and related materials and professional services. PES magazine asked IPVEA managing director, Bryan Ekus, to explain where the quickly growing trade group came from, why it was created, and what it has planned for the future…
Says Ekus: “It was not that I thought it was a good idea that they ought to start this new association; it was their idea that they needed something like this because they couldn’t find the support within organisations that existed within the PV solar segment. They were reaching out trying to find out ways they could come together in some type of setting so that they would be able to come across in a unified manner.”
Ekus saw a correlation to what he experienced in the 2001 launch of the Media-Tech Association to serve every facet of the optical and removable storage media manufacturing industry, spanning the range from all current formats of optical discs and magnetic media.
