Ascent Solar Technologies, a U.S. manufacturer of lightweight, flexible and durable CIGS thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solutions, has announced that it has commissioned its Thornton manufacturing facility as a Perovskite Center of Excellence (COE). Effective immediately, the facility will be dedicated to the industrial commercialization of Ascent’s patent-pending perovskite solar technologies that are reportedly demonstrating lab efficiencies above 20%.
Ascent has dedicated its Thornton facility to the purpose of Perovskite manufacturing development, and to the conversion of the Company’s patent-pending Perovskite solar technology to industrial scale. The COE is resourced by a dedicated team of experts spanning Research, Development, Manufacturing and Operations; USD $30 million of industrial equipment at original cost; Ascent’s patent-pending Perovskites intellectual property; and operational facilities with 17 years of manufacturing heritage.
“We’re fortunate that we have a manufacturing facility of this scope that we can dedicate to developing and delivering innovative Perovskite solar PV at scale,” said Jeffrey Max, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. “The recently announced proposed acquisition of European manufacturing assets would, if completed, increase our core manufacturing capacity by an order of magnitude, enabling us to continue meeting customer demand. This global production provides us with the near-term flexibility to make this significant investment in taking Perovskite gains from lab to fab. When translated to industrial scale, the efficiency gains we’ve recorded in the lab will be a game changer for the solar industry.”
