Financial

Prominent U.S solar panel maker, First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR), is reportedly building a new research and development (R&D) innovation center in Lake Township, Ohio, believed to be the largest facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere - The Jim Nolan Center for Solar Innovation. The new center is part of an approximately half-billion dollar investment by First Solar in R&D infrastructure, and the company expects to also commission a perovskite development line at its Perrysburg, Ohio, campus in the second half of 2024. 

The facility covers 1.3 million square feet and includes a high-tech pilot manufacturing line allowing for the production of full-sized prototypes of thin film and tandem PV modules. Prior to the commissioning of the Jim Nolan Center, First Solar utilized a manufacturing line at its Perrysburg facility for its late-stage product development efforts. This arrangement limited the flexibility for development efforts and created constraints when mission-critical tools had to go offline. By resolving these limitations and constraints, the new facility is expected to accelerate innovation cycles.

INPEX CORPORATION, a large Japanese exploration and production (E&P) company, has announced it has made an investment in EneCoat Technologies, a Kyoto University-based startup company that develops next-generation perovskite solar cells. This is part of a series C round that totaled in 5.5 billion yen (around USD$35 million) and was led by Toyota’s growth fund, Woven Capital and and Mitsubishi HC Capital (in addition to INPEX). Existing investors Mirai Creation Fund III and Kyoto University Innovation Capital participated in the round, bringing the total funding raised to over 8 billion yen (over USD$50 million).

As perovskite solar cells use iodine compounds as raw materials, INPEX is well positioned to tap synergies in terms of raw material supply through its operations at the Naruto Gas Field in Chiba Prefecture, a water-soluble gas field where subsurface brine water is used to produce iodine following the extraction of natural gas.

Rice University materials scientist, Boris Yakobson, has won three awards from two federal agencies totaling $4,140,611 over several years to research challenging aspects of advanced materials’ production, performance and dynamics. A project titled “Mapping the synthetic routes for 2-dimensional materials” aims to unravel the molecular mechanisms that would enable the production of 2D materials for use in microchips and future electronics at industrial scale and quality.

Building on previous work on several iconic 2D materials such as graphene, molybdenum disulfide and hexagonal boron nitride, the Yakobson Research Group aims to establish a general approach to the development of predictive synthesis models for perovskites, nitrides, oxides and other materials coveted for energy and electronics applications.

Reports suggest that a new pilot line for the production of perovskite solar cells has been approved by the administrative committee of Xinzhan Hi-Tech Zone, Hefei City, Anhui Province, China. 

The project is initiated by Hefei BOE PV Company, a holding subsidiary of BOE Technology Group Co. (BOE), a company that is known to have launched a project to enter the photovoltaic industry by investing in perovskite solar cells. BOE reportedly plans to invest 871 million yuan (approximately US$119.85 million) to set up the pilot line for perovskite solar cells. 

An assistant professor at Arizona State University named Nick Rolston has received a 2024 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award to develop standards for perovskite solar panel reliability and longevity.

As silicon solar panels have been around for decades, standards to build high-quality panels are well established after years of research and testing. However, there are no such tests or standards for perovskite panels. As a family of materials with different properties than silicon, perovskites exhibit much different behavior. Many designs developed to date degrade quickly, dropping to 80% of their original efficiency — the standard for replacement — after a year or less.

Swift Solar has announced the close of its $27 million Series A financing round. The round was co-led by Eni Next and Fontinalis Partners. Also joining the round are new and existing investors including Stanford University, Good Growth Capital, BlueScopeX, HL Ventures, Toba Capital, Sid Sijbrandij, James Fickel, Adam Winkel, Fred Ehrsam, Jonathan Lin, and Climate Capital.

In total, Swift Solar has raised $44 million for its mission to transform the solar energy landscape with perovskite tandem solar products. Proceeds from this round will accelerate Swift Solar’s scaling of efficient and stable tandem technology as the Company prepares to break ground on its first factory. Swift Solar also plans to build a factory in the U.S. in the next two to three years to manufacture thin-film solar.

TandemPV has announced that it was selected to receive a $4.7 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to pursue commercialization of its thin-film solar photovoltaic technology. 

The selected project will help TandemPV prove out its pairing of conventional silicon solar with perovskite materials for panels that have the potential to be up to 40% more powerful than those used today.

It was reported that Renshine Solar will open a gigawatt-scale perovskite PV module factory in Jiangsu province, with a planned investment of CNY 1 billion ($138 million). 

The CNY 1 billion gigawatt-scale perovskite cell project will be located in the Economic and Technological Development Zone (ETDZ) in Changshu, Jiangsu province, China. The Company started operating a 150 MW production line for perovskite modules in January. It has since claimed that its commercial modules have achieved a power conversion efficiency of 18.4%.

Funding totaling AUD$58.3 million (over USD$38,781,000) has been announced through a recent round of the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme, supporting projects including quantum computing devices, more durable perovskite-based solar photovoltaic cells, and terahertz biosensing.

The funding was announced through the scheme, which is part of ARC’s Discovery Program and supports researchers “to design ambitious research programs around a team of postdoctoral fellows and postgraduate students” in various fields.

Microquanta, a perovskite solar cell manufacturer based in Hangzhou, China, has announced its latest procurement of state-of-the-art vacuum deposition equipment from SMIT Thermal Solutions. This significant acquisition, surpassing 9 million Euros in value, marks a pivotal moment in Microquanta's journey towards launching the world's first gigawatt-scale (GW) perovskite solar cell factory in Hangzhou.

This collaboration with SMIT Thermal Solutions is not a first for Microquanta; the Dutch-based company has been a partner since 2018, starting with a pilot setup, followed by the delivery of a mass production system for Microquanta's 100MW factory. The latest deal involves cutting-edge next-generation mass production systems, tailored to meet the ambitious scale and efficiency goals of Microquanta's GW factory.