UK headquartered thin-film solar technology company Power Roll Limited has opened its pilot manufacturing facility on a former colliery site in UK's County Durham, calling it the world's 1st such facility to produce low-cost, lightweight and flexible solar film.
Claiming its solar film to have up to 20 times lower carbon footprint than silicon PV, Power Roll's new fab in Jade Business Park employs 34 highly skilled workers. The company cites estimates to suggest potential for almost 100 GW of solar film to be deployed for UK commercial roof space alone. At the end of 2021, the UK had 14.6 GW of solar installed capacity (see UK Installed 730 MW New Solar In 2021).
Further Power Roll says thin-film flexible solar films can be deployed for the built environment, off-grid, on vehicles and other applications where the use of traditional heavy silicon panels is restricted or is expensive to use.
"Developed in the UK, our unique micro-groove design enables a manufacturing process that uses a roll-to-roll technique similar to many low-cost print processes in use today," said the company's Chief Executive Neil Spann. "We will fully demonstrate our technology at our Durham facility and will partner with large companies in the UK and overseas to globally scale up the solar film manufacturing."
In December 2021, Power Roll joined hands with India's Thermax to jointly explore market potential for scale manufacturing and deployment of its technology in the Asian nation (see Solar Film Manufacturer Wants India Manufacturing).