Financial

The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced up to $47 million in funding (DE-FOA-0002920) to accelerate the research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of affordable clean hydrogen technologies. 

This funding opportunity focuses on RD&D of key hydrogen delivery and storage technologies as well as affordable and durable fuel cell technologies. The RD&D projects will focus particularly on applications for heavy-duty trucks, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and eliminate tailpipe emissions that are harmful to local air quality. Among the specific topics to be funded in this interest area is perovskite-based catalysts, under the headline of "Hydrogen Carrier Development".

University of Sydney's Professor Anita Ho-Baillie is joining forces with Sydney-based renewable technology company SunDrive to commercialize perovskite-silicon cells, with backing from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) of AUD$2.78 million (over USD$1.9 million).

Other investigators on the project include Professor David McKenzie, Dr Jianghui Zheng and Dr Arafat Mahmud, who are based at the University of Sydney, and Mr Vince Allen, Mr David Hu and Professor Alison Lennon from SunDrive.

Warwick University has been granted £2.2 million (over USD$2,620,000) to investigate metal halide perovskite compounds, for use in transparent and flexible solar panels, which remain stable in space. A new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer will be used to understand how to increase lifespan and durability of these solar cells.

The European Research Council (ERC) has approved a five-year study which will explore the atomic-level structure of perovskite solar cell materials. This will address issues including stability and lifespan of metal halide perovskite compounds, which decrease in high humidity, strong sunlight and at elevated temperatures.

U.S-based company CubicPV has announced plans to establish 10 GW of conventional mono wafer capacity in the United States. 

While CubicPV reports that its new factory will produce conventional silicon wafers, the company said it will continue research and development of its tandem modules, which reportedly offer more than 30% greater efficiency than the highest efficiency conventional modules. The design stacks two solar cells, with silicon on the bottom, powered by CubicPV’s Direct Wafer technology, and perovskite on the top, the company claims that the tandem design “will dramatically increase the power of every acre of solar deployed.”

The Netherlands' province of North Brabant, the Brabant Development Agency (BOM) and TNO – partner in Solliance – have signed a cooperation agreement for perovskite solar cells and integrated solar energy products. 

At the Brainport Industry Campus (BIC) in Eindhoven, TNO is working on flexible solar energy laminates that can then be processed into components for buildings, infrastructure and vehicles. The research line was devised by TNO and built by partners from the business community – including MAAN and Duflex – with financial support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. The line of research will also play a major role in the European project MC2.0, which will start in January 2023 under the leadership of TNO and for which 20 partners from different countries will provide input. In parallel, the research program on industrialize production of perovskites, is running. The goal is to bring both studies together in mass customization based on perovskite.

China's GCL Photoelectric Materials, a subsidiary of GCL TECH, announced the completion of RMB 500 million (around USD$72,000,000) B+ round of financing, which was jointly led by Temasek, Sequoia China, and IDG Capital, followed by Longwater Investment and other institutions.

It was reported that this round of financing will be used to improve the process and equipment development of the 100MW perovskite module production line of GCL Photoelectric Materials.

MBRAUN, a major mechanical and industrial engineering company and an affiliate of Germany’s Indus Holdings AG, plans to invest almost USD$750,000 (1 billion won) in a South Korean university as part of a deal to jointly conduct solar cell-related research and development projects. MBRAUN will also donate research equipment to Sungkyunkwan University and help it build facilities for the projects. With the investment, MBRAUN and Sungkyunkwan University’s Advanced Institute of Nano-Technology (SAINT) will establish an application lab at the research center in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.

“Korea is the birthplace of technological innovation. That’s why we decided to donate research equipment to a Korean university,” Patrick Bieger, MBRAUN’s chief executive, said in a recent interview with The Korea Economic Daily in Seoul. He said it’s the first time that MBRAUN has decided to invest in a university, which shows how important the Korean market is in terms of technological innovations.

South Korea-based Qcells and a European research group (led by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB)) have jointly established a pilot manufacturing line for silicon-perovskite tandem cells in Thalheim, Germany. The project aims to speed up the technology’s mass manufacturing and market penetration. The project began on 1 November.

The so-called "Pepperoni project" will establish a pilot manufacturing line in Thalheim, Qcell’s headquarters in Germany. The name stems from the broader project titled ‘Pilot line for European Production of PEROvskite-Silicon taNdem modules on Industrial scale' or PEPPERONI.

French solar module manufacturer Voltec Solar and the Institut Photovoltaïque d’Île-de-France (IPVF) have announced plans to set up a factory for four-terminal (4T) tandem perovskite-silicon solar panels in France. The “France PV Industrie” project aims to build a gigafactory for solar panels, with a dual objective: to produce more efficient solar panels locally and to create a sustainable industry, based on a fast-growing market and a breakthrough technology.

The IPVF and Voltec plan to create a joint venture (France PV Industrie) so they can secure the necessary financing to scale up to industrial production. The pilot line will require an investment of €15 million ($15.4 million) and the industrial demonstrator €50 million. The partners estimate the total investment at around €1 billion by 2030. The facility will make modules based on IPVF's 4T tandem solar cell technology. The two entities plan to set up the first pilot production line by the end of 2023 and the first 200 MW industrial demonstrator in 2025. They will then increase the factory's capacity to 1 GW in 2027 and 5 GW by 2030.

Reliance New Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has signed agreements to invest in the US-based perovskite-based solar technology company Caelux Corporation which is in the research and development stage of its perovskite-based solar technology. 

The Reliance company will invest USD$12 million to acquire a 20 percent stake in the US-based company.