Australia's green energy company Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) has invested further into the Netherlands based lightweight, thin-film solar module producer HyET Solar, this time along with Dutch investment fund Teslin Participaties.
The undisclosed amount will support HyET Solar roll out its Dutch solar PV factory planned to have a minimum of 40 MW annual production capacity of modules with thin film silicon and perovskite technologies. It has branded the technology as Powerfoil which the company claims has an efficiency of 12% that would be equivalent to the output of 18% for glass solar panels.
So far the company has installed the technology for smaller projects, but claims its applicability for both high volume markets as solar farms as well as high value markets as building integrated PV (BIPV).
HyET Solar's Founder and Director Rombout Swanborn said, "With the investments of Teslin Participaties and FFI, two powerful and complementary strategic partners, HyET Solar finds itself in a very attractive position to rapidly roll out its business worldwide."
The PV technology company says its aim is to drastically reduce the cost of solar power with a cost structure of modules of $100k per MW. It may also consider listing on a major stock exchange in the next few years to access green finance to grow further.
FFI's interest in solar is due to its overarching target to deliver 15 million tons of green hydrogen globally by 2030 to tackle climate change.
"We are working with HyET Solar to ensure we have the best and most efficient solar technology at our fingertips to generate the level of green hydrogen the world needs," explained FFI CEO Julie Shuttleworth. "Already we have a memorandum of understanding in place with E.ON to supply Germany with 5 million tons per annum by 2030." It announced E.ON partnership in March 2022 (see 5 Million Ton Green Hydrogen For Europe).
However, when presenting recently a new world record for a somewhat different, silicon wafer-perovskite tandem technology, Swiss research insitute EPFL's head Christophe Ballif said, "Several years of R&D are still needed to bring such technology and manufacturing processes to market." Adding, "A big challenge will be developing solar cells that can remain stable on our rooftops for more than 25 years" (see 29.2% Efficiency Record For Tandem Solar Cell).
Back in October 2021, FFI acquired 60% stake in HyET Solar's parent company High yield Energy Technologies (HyET) Group to help the latter expand its Dutch fab and also collaborate on a 1 GW thin film solar factory in Australia (see FFI Acquires Majority Stake In Dutch HyET Group).
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