Thin-film modules are up to stiff competition, from cSi, perovksite and tandem-junctions..

1. 02 | 2021 | 78538
Freshly
picked electrons
How agrivoltaics is delivering
increased fruit, crop and energy yields
Distribution
constraints
Rooftop solar drives
storage and smart solutions
Batteries to
center stage
With solar increasingly
meeting the challenge of cost,
batteries, big and small, step forward

2. 2
contents
02/2021 | www.pv-magazine.com
20
36
44 52
58 68
What Asia needs to turn away from coal
Though it contains many of the largest PV markets, Asia also leads the world in building
new coal capacity. Renewables face strong subsidies and institutional inertia.
Nickel’s problem with waste:
A new method to extract metals from ore could help greening battery materials.
Bifacial spurs a rethink on PID
New trouble and newer fixes from the PV industry’s old foe.
Unlocking lightweight, flex applications
Thin-film modules are up to stiff competition, from c-Si,
perovksite and tandem-junctions.
An inclusive and rural European
Green Deal through agrisolar:
French farmers pioneer agrivoltaics.
Cheaper, cleaner communities:
To decarbonize the house, it’s best to plan
for the entire neighborhood.

3. 4
contents
02/2021 | www.pv-magazine.com
6 News
markets & trends≥
8 Strong beginnings: Solar stocks
felt the Biden-effect and watch glee-
fully plans in China and Europe.
10 A wrench in the works: Module
prices climb again, with shipping
becoming a luxury service.
12 Growth continues despite Covid-
19 headwinds: No sign of faltering
in the residential behind-the-meter
market, writes Michael Longson of
IHS Markit.
14 Global PV installations to surpass
150 GW in 2021: The year prom-
ises new upstream capacity and low
module prices.
16 New EU battery rules support a
sustainable industry: Consistency
and predictability are welcome
additions for Europe’s upstream
battery sector.
18 New partnership to drive EU bat-
tery innovation: Europe’s battery
industry is closing ranks in the face
of tough competition.
20 What Asia needs to turn away
from coal: Electricity market
reforms fight against institutional
inertia.
24 US storage goes mega-scale: And
its not just California that turns to
batteries to avoid blackouts.
28 The big PV switch-off: South Aus-
tralia’s PV owners face heteronomy
or digital economy.
applications &
installations≥
32 Solar’s flexibility can be agricul-
ture’s gain: New reseach compares
apples and oranges.
36 An inclusive and rural European
Green Deal through agrisolar:
French farmers are pioneering, but
European peers are at their heels.
38 Closing the energy technology,
poverty gap: Electrifying Indone-
sia’s last mile.
40 The future is female among Egyp-
tian engineers: A landmark solar
project can be truly empowering.
42 Double-digit growth ahead for
BIPV: Mature technology and
sound economics for Europe’s big
‘renovation wave’.
industry & suppliers≥
44 Bifacial adoption spurs rethink
on PID: New trouble and fixes
from the PV industry’s old foe.
48 Sponsored ‘The regulator’s wish is
my export limitation’: No need for
fear of grid export Down Under.
50 Support schemes migrate from
solar to storage: As solar can stand
on its own feet now, behind-the-
meter storage is next in line.
52 Unlocking lightweight, flex appli-
cations: Thin-film modules are
up to stiff competition, from cSi,
perovksite and tandem-junctions.
56 pv magazine Test: December’s
results from the Xi’an outdoor test.
storage &
smart grids≥
58 Nickel’s problem with waste: A
new method to extract metal from
ore could help greening battery
materials.
62 European batteries a sustain-
able reality: Tesvolt’s CEO Dan-
iel Hannemann makes the case for
‘made in EU’.
64 Race for green hydrogen: A new
geopolitical spectacle has just
started, and a few dare an early
escape from the pack.
68 Zero Plus for cheaper, cleaner
communities: To decarbonize
households its best to plan for the
entire neighborhood.
70 A new era for battery materials:
An 18th
-century English minister
and a torch could make it possible.
financial & legal≥
72 State aid key for green hydrogen:
Brussels is revising rules this year,
much to the joy of hydrogen and
storage players, perhaps.
details≥
76 Storage news
78 pv magazine Annual Awards 2021
80 Final thought
advertisement overview≥
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Unlocking lightweight,
flex applications
With robust market demand and
the expansion of bifacial module
applications, PV manufacturers are fac-
ing a shortage of solar glass. This short-
age, claims the founder and former CEO
of pioneering Chinese solar maker Sun-
tech, Shi Zhengrong, has caused the prices
of solar glass to increase by up to 40% and
left module producers scrambling to lock
in long-term supply contracts.
While nothing new, bifacial modules
are increasingly viewed as a mature solar
technology, with the rear side electricity
production delivering a bonus to project
developers. Bifacial cells have been encap-
sulated into modules with traditional
white backsheets in the past, LG’s Neon
range is a notable example, and trans-
parent rear backsheets are also available
at comparable prices to glass. However,
dual-glass bifacial modules dominate –
and as demand for bifacial has increased,
Not all rooftops can bear the weight of glass PV modules. Some others
have curves and shapes ill-suited to uniform, bulky panels. Flexible
modules have long been advanced as the solution here, however the keys
to unlocking this potential have proven illusive.
Photo: Solar Frontier
Flexible modules are produced by applying
semiconductor material directly to a flexible material.
Today, polymers are being increasingly explored as a
substrate material.

5. www.pv-magazine.com | 02/2021
industry & suppliers
53
glass makers have not kept pace with
supply.
BloombergNEF confirms that PV glass
prices increased by 75% between July and
November 2020, on the back of the sup-
ply bottleneck. It notes that the shortage
is particularly pronounced for 2mm glass
used in dual-glass modules. However,
as a result of a number of policy mea-
sures taken by Chinese administrators
and suppliers expected to ramp produc-
tion by over 35% in 2021, BloombergNEF
expects solar glass prices to normalize to
pre-shortage levels in the first half of the
year.
Shi Zhengrong has a vested interest in
highlighting the shortage of glass cur-
rently gripping the market, as he now
heads up the module startup Sunman
– which encapsulates crystalline sili-
con (c-Si) solar cells in a polymer com-
posite material, to produce lightweight
modules. With a weight of 5.8kg with
a 5.6mm frame and 8.1kg with a 35mm
frame – both in a 60-cell configuration,
the Sunman modules are promoted as
being applicable in rooftop arrays where
the roof structure cannot bear the weight
of traditional glass modules, and for the
use in e-mobility.
Shi says that a wealth of opportunity
exists for lightweight modules for roof-
tops in sunbelt regions, such as Southeast
Asia or southern China, where roofs are
not constructed with the weight of win-
ter snowfall in mind. Sunman reports that
it has shipped approximately 50 MW of
modules over three years and is anticipat-
ing that its annual shipments will grow to
40 MW in 2021.
“There are many lightly structured
commercial rooftops which cannot han-
dle the weight,” said Shi, “at the moment,
with policy movements, everyone wants
to put solar on their roof.”
Lightweight, flexible
Rooftops not available to glass modules
have long been seen as an opportunity
that can be supplied by a range of non-
crystalline PV technologies. These include
a range of thin films, such as amorphous
silicon, dye-sensitized solar cells, copper
indium gallium selenide (CIGS) PV, and
organic PV (OPV).
To produce such modules, the semicon-
ductor material is deposited onto a flexible
substrate – previously stainless steel was
common but today polymers are increas-
ingly used. This deposition of the semi-
conductor can be achieved through slot-
printing or ink-jet processes, attractive
due to their low cost. Evaporative depo-
sition has also been used for higher-effi-
ciency thin films.
Roll-to-roll (R2R) production, where
the substrate can be unwound, passed
through the processing steps and
rewound, can potentially be attractive due
to high throughputs – and indeed is a very
mature technology in the printing indus-
try with more than 50 years of application.
Karl Melkonyan, an analyst with IHS
Markit, says that while flexible thin film
solar may be “attractive for certain appli-
cations” there remains “only a few hun-
dreds” of megawatts in flexible PV pro-
duction capacity globally. R2R, he notes, is
the predominant process for flexible thin
film production, accounting for more
than 90% of output at present – although
he notes that it is “difficult to provide pre-
cise numbers,” due to the small volumes.
Flexible CIGS
R2R flexible thin film production has
been deployed at noteworthy volumes by
a number of CIGS manufacturers in the
past, such as Global Solar and MiaSolé.
Both could boast of a good track record
of efficiency improvements, however nei-
ther was able to scale cost-effectively, and
both were acquired by troubled Chinese
PV entrant Hanergy.
Maurice Clair, the head of process
development for laser equipment sup-
plier 3D Micromac reports that along-
side CIGS, amorphous silicon and OPV
Photo:
3-D
Micromac
The need to control processes and prevent
defects over an area much larger than a
silicon wafer is an often underestimated
challenge inherent to producing flexible
electronics.
Photo: Midsummer
Midsummer’s CIGS cells are
cut from the stainless-steel
substrate before processing,
and then assembled into the
company’s ‘Wave’ modules for
the rooftop segment.

6. 54
industry & suppliers
02/2021 | www.pv-magazine.com
developers have both applied R2R tech-
niques in production. He anticipates there
to be increased activity in the space, given
the weight limitations glass-based mod-
ules face.
Clair also notes that there is “quite a
lot of development on perovskite on R2R
processes,” and that, “you could argue
that everybody that was working in the
area of organic PV which have not been
deposited in vacuum have now moved to
perovskites.”
As to the challenges facing perovskite
and other R2R thin film developers, the
3D Micromac technologist says that while
the throughput offered by R2R is promis-
ing, its “sheer scale” presents other chal-
lenges. He explains that while c-Si produc-
tion processes can be optimized in small
batches of wafers, the same cannot be
done on R2R. Additionally, Clair reports,
some processes in R2R PV production are
combined, further complicating process
optimization.
A further challenge, Clair says, is appli-
cable to all flexible electronics and has
been underestimated. “The [c-Si] wafer is
a relatively small area where defects can
occur. With thin film PV, you are talk-
ing about web widths of one meter, where
you have to control evaporation processes,
cleanliness and so on.” While scale can
be promising, it does not come without
challenges.
Nordic maverick
Sweden’s Midsummer is a flexible CIGS
producer that has opted to tread a differ-
Photo: Flisom
Flexible polymer substrates allow for solar to be
integrated into curved structures.
“The primary challenge facing flexible
thin film producers is the conversion
efficiency they can achieve
”

7. www.pv-magazine.com | 02/2021
industry & suppliers
55
ent path, both in terms of the thin film
community and in its business strategy.
Originally conceived as a production
equipment supplier, it applied its found-
ers’ experience in optical disk production
to CIGS through its DUO production
system – while simultaneously applying
batch PV cell production techniques on a
flexible substrate, rather than R2R.
Midsummer produces its flexible CIGS
Wave modules in Sweden and is “currently
planning” a 50 MW production facility
in Italy, the company reports. Alongside
lightweight applications, particularly in
the C&I rooftop market segment, Mid-
summer highlights its low CO2 emis-
sions and European production as having
value for householders and businesses in
the region – “especially the for property
owned by municipalities, regional author-
ities and states,” says Midsummer’s Christ-
offer Löfquist, the company’s solar panel
business area manager.
Midsummer’s CIGS cells are cut from
the stainless-steel substrate before pro-
cessing, and then assembled into modules
– allowing for “high quality, … short cycle
time, high yield and output” production,
reports Löfquist. In 2020 Midsummer
introduced its “PowerMesh” cell inter-
connection technology in production and
its modules now include a bypass diode
between each cell, delivering enhanced
shade tolerance.
In terms of markets, Löfquist says that
the company is increasingly focused on
southern European markets and has
signed agreements with distributors in
Spain and Portugal – where commercial
and residential roofs are not typically built
with heavy snow loads in mind.
Future moves, threats
IHS Markit’s Melkonyan believes that
perovskite, and indeed tandem-junction
thin films, is likely the “most encourag-
ing” technology pathway along which
flexible PV can be developed. He points
to perovskite as an additional absorption
layer, on top of CIGS or cadmium tellu-
ride (CdTE), as being promising. He con-
cludes that the primary challenge facing
flexible thin film producers is the con-
version efficiency they can achieve – par-
ticularly in light of continuous progress
achieved by c-Si producers.
It appears likely that it is the hurdle of
producing high efficiency flexible thin
films at competitive prices that will be
most difficult to overcome for its propo-
nents. Crystalline silicon, with its hun-
dreds of gigawatts of production capacity
and relatively aligned technological path-
ways, is a formidable rival.
And while brittle c-Si cells, suscepti-
ble as they are to cracking, may appear
unsuitable for flexible module designs,
Sunman’s Shi believes that thinner cells
make this far from unavoidable. “If the
solar cell thickness is below 100 microns
then it starts to become elastic, so it is very
hard to break it,” says Shi. “If we can make
[c-Si] solar cells with 80 micron thickness,
then we can bend like a thin film.”
Jonathan Gifford
Accuracy, contactless handling
for R2R processing
German laser process supplier 3D-Micromac
developed its microFLEX production platform
to supply R2R thin film manufacturers. The tool
boasts two major advantages in that it can
transport the substrate without contacting
the sensitive semiconductor surface and can
achieve a high level of accuracy over the entire
substrate web width.
The microFLEX is available in two basic configu-
rations: one targeting a high level of precision,
the other throughput. When targeting preci-
sion, the microFLEX platform can achieve an
accuracy of ±25 microns at any point along the
web width – which 3D-Micromac reports is well
within the range that can be achieved on glass
substrate thin film processing – with a through-
put of 250,000m2
per tool. When throughput is
maximized through a continuous process, 3D
can configure the microFLEX to process 1.5 mil-
lion m2
with an accuracy of ±75 μm. 3D-Micro-
mac reports that it has supplied approximately
10 of its microFLEX tools to R2R PV producers,
although details as to the deals are confidential.
Photo: 3D Micromac
Midsummer produces flexible CIGS modules in
Sweden, though the company is increasingly looking
to southern Europe, where its lightweight modules
have an advantage in the rooftop segment, to market
its products.
Photo: Midsummer