Oxford Photovoltaics (Oxford PV) - Page 9

Oxford Photovoltaics recently announced an equity investment of £8.1 million (around US $10.2 million), adding to the £8.7 million first close investment announced in October 2016. The bulk of this investment will reportedly come from three new strategic investors: Statoil ASA, Legal & General Capital and a technology-focused, innovative family fund investor.

Oxford PV recently announced the acquisition of a pilot line site in Germany and, in the beginning of December 2016, announced a Joint Development Agreement with a major solar panel manufacturer to scale the technology towards commercialization. This additional injection of funds will hopefully help accelerate these development activities as well as support the next generation product research in the UK.

Oxford PV has announced a joint development agreement with an unnamed global solar cell and module manufacturer, as an additional step in the company's quest for commercialization of its perovskite solar technology.

The two companies will will work together to move Oxford PV's technology from lab scale to manufacturing-ready status, with most of the work taking place at the pilot line site in Germany that Oxford PV acquired recently.

Oxford PV, a spin-out from the University of Oxford that aims to commercialize a new technology for thin-film solar cells, has recently acquired the former thin-film production site of Bosch Solar in Germany, to establish a fab with pilot-scale capacity for perovskite wafers.

The plan is to ramp up Oxford PV's perovskite technology to industry-standard wafer size. Oxford's CEO stated that the facility was identified because of its existing first-class facilities and the ready availability of a local, experienced, highly skilled workforce. The Brandenburg team will work closely alongside the existing operation in Oxford.

UK-based Oxford Photovoltaics, founded in 2010 as a spin-off from the University of Oxford, has announced an equity investment of £8.7 million (around US $10.6 million), provided by a combination of new and existing shareholders as the first portion of a Series C funding round. Further investment is expected before the end of 2016.

The funding will be used to help extend Oxford PV's position in the use of its perovskite technology to significantly enhance the performance and economic returns achievable from existing solar PV technologies. A portion of the funding has already been earmarked to develop a demonstration line to showcase the technology to manufacturers, bringing the firm one step closer to commercialization.

A team coordinated by the Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM) will work on a €5 million, three-year project to produce solar cells based on perovskite at a size of at least 15x15 cm, while maintaining a conversion efficiency of at least 14%.

In addition to this up-scaling, the research team will develop high-performance cells. Such tandem cells can harvest a broader spectrum of light than a single cell, which should lead to an increase in their efficiency further, approaching the 30% range. The team states that, in the longer term, existing manufacturing methods used to make silicon cells may require only minor modification before being used to produce tandem cells, as the perovskite layer would simply be added on top of the conventional cell to act as an 'efficiency booster'.