France based solar module producer Voltec Solar along with the Institut Photovoltaïque d'Île-de-France (IPVF) have announced plans to launch production of 4T perovskite/silicon tandem solar panels in the country, aiming for a scale of 5 GW by 2030.
Both the partners said they have been working on developing this technology for over 8 years now, and reached a sufficient level of maturity to launch a large scale industrialization project, working on IPVF's tandem cell technology. Initial products will be available commercially in 2025.
"This is a technological revolution that not only allows us to achieve a 30% efficiency at the photovoltaic module level, compared to the best efficiency currently achieved by traditional technologies, but also reduces the consumption of energy and materials necessary for manufacturing and makes use of materials from recycling," said IPVF Managing Director Roch Drozdowski-Strehl.
The project dubbed France PV Industrie, plans to use recycled silicon in the panels and reduce the quantity of solar used to bring down cost of the final product and also make it low carbon emitter.
It has been submitted to the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) under the Call for Projects for France 2030.
Currently, Voltec Solar has an annual production capacity of 200 MW that it plans to expand to 500 MW by 2023.
"Tandem technology will be the dominant photovoltaic technology of the next decade. It is likely to shake up the competitive situation and France is currently ahead of the game, provided that the industrial deployment, which is intended to be ambitious, takes place," added Managing Director of Voltec Solar, Lucas Weiss. "This is one of the conditions for success in photovoltaics."
There are already other ventures that have been working on developing Silicon Perovskite Tandem solar technology in Europe, primary Oxford PV building a pilot factory in Germany. Recently, the Dutch Solliance consortium has reported crossing the power conversion efficiency barrier of 30% for tandem solar cells with 30.1% for 4-terminal semi transparent perovskite silicon tandem cell at the 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (see 30.1% Perovskite Silicon Tandem Cell Efficiency).
When looking at France, there has been good and bad new for solar manufacturing in recent times. Earlier this year in March 2022, a solar start-up called Carbon said it will establish a 5 GW fab to produce TOPCon and IBC solar modules in France by 2025 and expand vertical integration to 15 GW by 2030 (see 5 GW Solar Module Fab Plans For France). And Norway's REC Group has been selected as one of the 17 winners of the European Commission's (EC) 2nd round of Innovation Fund awards, paving the way for the company to build a 2 GW heterojunction solar module manufacturing fab in France, although there is no news on the status of the project (see REC Group's French Plans Win EU Funding). On the other hand, in October it became public that Maxeon shut down its solar PV manufacturing facility in France's Porcelette citing challenging price environment (see Maxeon Solar's French Production Line Discontinued).
At the upcoming TaiyangNews virtual conference on High Efficiency Solar Technologies—TOPCon, HJT and Beyond, Today & Tomorrow from Nov 23-25, 2022, Prof. Gianluca Coletti from TNO / UNSW will present about the Next Generation Solar Cell Technologies, including Silicon Perovskite Tandem Solar. Registrations for the event are free, and open here.