Flisom is a developer and manufacturer of
photovoltaic (PV)
thin film solar cell
A thin-film solar cell is a second generation solar cell that is made by depositing one or more thin layers, or thin film (TF) of photovoltaic material on a substrate, such as glass, plastic or metal. Thin-film solar cells are commercially use ...
s, located near
Zurich, Switzerland. The company produces high-efficiency
CIGS thin film solar modules on flexible
plastic foil using proprietary roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques.
The innovative manufacturing technology enables price competition with established c-si PV manufacturing systems at a comparatively smaller production scale. Furthermore, the lightweight, flexible, jet-black and thin solar panels potentially can bring down the overall costs for fully installed
solar PV systems
A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and co ...
. This is about half the cost of conventional PV technology based on
crystalline silicon
Crystalline silicon or (c-Si) Is the crystalline forms of silicon, either polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si, consisting of small crystals), or monocrystalline silicon (mono-Si, a continuous crystal). Crystalline silicon is the dominant semiconduc ...
.
Potential applications for flexible lightweight CIGS modules include
building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), applied photovoltaics (BAPV), as well as customized solar panels for Transportation & Mobility and
portable rollable power systems.
History
Flisom AG was founded in 2005 as a spin-off company of
ETH Zurich, and has a long-standing research partnership with
Empa
The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa, German acronym for ''Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt'') is an interdisciplinary Swiss research institute for applied materials sciences and tech ...
– the ''Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology'', which has been developing this type of flexible solar cell to
world record efficiencies of 20.4%. The world record for CIGS cells based in laboratory conditions has since been further increased by ZSW (german: Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung) and stands at 21.7% as of July 2015. Since this record was achieved on glass substrate, Flisom's research partner Empa is still the holder of the world record with 20.4% cell efficiency on a polymeric substrate.
Technology
The company's production technology is based on a
roll-to-roll manufacturing process of flexible solar modules, involving
deposition of
thin film
A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer ( monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ...
s of
CIGS absorber material onto a
polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
foil
substrate made of
polyimide. The key processes of depositing the absorber material in this manner has been proprietarily developed by the company itself. As of 2015, a 15
MW pilot production line is being commissioned in a new facility in
Niederhasli, near Zurich, Switzerland.
See also
*
List of CIGS companies
This list of notable companies manufacturing copper indium gallium selenide solar cells (CIGS) includes a number of companies, some of which have significantly reduced or completely closed down production:
* Ascent Solar Technologies
* Avancis ...
*
Solar Frontier
Solar Frontier Kabushiki Kaisha is a Japanese photovoltaic company that develops and manufactures thin film solar cells using CIGS technology. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Showa Shell Sekiyu and located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The company ...
*
Thin film solar cell
A thin-film solar cell is a second generation solar cell that is made by depositing one or more thin layers, or thin film (TF) of photovoltaic material on a substrate, such as glass, plastic or metal. Thin-film solar cells are commercially use ...
*
References
External links
Flisom: Flexible PV from Lab to Fab
Empa Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics{{small, (webpage Empa)
Thin-film cell manufacturers
Sustainable energy
Swiss brands