Agrivoltaics - Page 2

Researchers from EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), University of Cantabria and National Tsing Hua University have created a bifacial perovskite-CIGS tandem solar cell and developed a new low-temperature production process resulting in record efficiencies of 19.8% for front and 10.9% for rear illumination.

The idea is collecting direct sunlight, as well as its reflection via the rear end of the solar cell, which should increase the yield of energy the cell produces. Potential applications are, for instance, building-integrated photovoltaics, agrivoltaics – the simultaneous use of areas of land for both photovoltaic power generation and agriculture – and vertically or high-tilt installed solar modules on high-altitude grounds.

TubeSolar, together with the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW), has reached an important milestone on the way to industrial production of its novel photovoltaic technology: an efficiency record of 14% was achieved on solar films in the industrially suitable "roll-to-roll" process. This was achieved as part of TubeSolar's perovskite research activities. 

In the process, the partners deposited all layers - with the exception of the front and rear contacts - using slot die. The speed of the coating process was over one metre per minute. The combination of this industrially suitable, fast production process and the high efficiency was referred to as 'groundbreaking' by the Companies. The flexible solar cells are used for the production of tubular photovoltaic modules, which can be used in agri-photovoltaics, among other applications.

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.