Ascent Solar Technologies, a developer and manufacturer of flexible thin-film photovoltaic solutions, has announced the signing of a Joint Development Agreement with German agrivoltaic thin-film solar tube maker, TubeSolar, to pursue the Agricultural-photovoltaics/Agrivoltaics (APV) market.
It was indicated that this JDA is a multi-million-dollar, long-term supply agreement, forming a strategic partnership between Ascent Solar and TubeSolar. This JDA includes (i) long-term supplier of customized PV ('PV Foils') for TubeSolar, (ii) Non-Recurring Engineering Fee ('NRE Fee') of up to $4 Million, payable by TubeSolar to Ascent Solar in three parts, (iii) establishment of a joint venture entity to develop a new manufacturing facility located in Germany ('JV FAB'), (iv) the Company will benefit from milestone payments by TubeSolar of up to $13.5 Million, and (v) joint development efforts in next generation, high efficiency CIGS-Perovskite tandem PV cells.
TubeSolar, which previously invested $2.5 Million into Ascent Solar, is a German listed publicly traded company that develops patented photovoltaic thin-film tubes assembled into modules for various applications within the agricultural sector. This strategic partnership affords Ascent Solar another potentially lucrative revenue source, while also giving the Company the ability to expand into a market that currently has an install capacity of 2.8 gigawatts annually, and is estimated to reach a massive, 500 gigawatt capacity by 2050'according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.
