Mass customization 2.0 for Integrated PV

Project Information

MC2.0

Grant agreement ID: 101096139

DOI

10.3030/101096139

Project closed

EC signature date 13 December 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 28 February 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 8 977 744,03

EU contribution

€ 7 592 626,00

Coordinated by

NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR TOEGEPAST NATUURWETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK TNO
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MC2.0 (Mass customization 2.0 for Integrated PV)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The aim of the MC2.0-project is that IPV products become widely available and affordable. To achieve this, it is important (1) to generate solar electricity where the demand is (in the built environment) and (2) to enable multifunctional use of area and space in the built environment. Several parties in the MC2.0 consortium have more than 20 years of experience in IPV development and as such have been involved in many earlier projects and studies. We believe that the major barrier for large scale market uptake of IPV is the high cost. Other - secondary but also important – barriers are immature sector cooperation and certification issues.

The approach of the MC2.0 project is to demonstrate a cost breakthrough for IPV by means of an advanced manufacturing approach, referred to as “mass customization”. In coherence with this approach, we will contribute to solving the other identified barriers. To realize this ambition, the MC2.0 consortium brings together experts and companies on materials for PV laminates (including PV cells), on manufacturing of PV laminates, on manufacturing of IPV products and on market and application of IPV products.

The mass-customization process already has a history of more than 25 years in other industries. However, within the PV industry, this concept seems to be a scientific innovation to the best of our knowledge, as will be clarified in this contribution.

The relevance becomes clear when one realizes that in the past 25 years, many integrated photovoltaics (IPV) products have been introduced and demonstrated . However, unfortunately, large scale deployment and massive market adoption of these technologies and products have not yet taken place. We foresee a huge scale-up and capacity build-up of PV manufacturing industry in Europe in the upcoming 5 years, that will have a large effect on our living environment.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Mass-customization process

The diagram in Figure 1 shows the state-of-the-art for the production of IPV products. Typical IPV products for the building industry (BIPV products) are: BIPV pitched roof plates, BIPV opaque façade elements, and BIPV window elements. These products are generally delivered as catalogue products: only a limited variation is available in terms of base materials, sizes and colors, and are made on small scale production lines with a relatively large number of manual operations. It requires a substantial changeover effort for changing to a different product variation, and the small-scale manufacturing results in high-cost IPV products.

The new mass customization approach enables to manufacture semi-fabricates supporting all possible IPV end products on the same programmable production line (the front-end process). The back-end process then consists of relatively simple integration steps (such as lamination on the carrier material of choice – which can be glass, metal, sandwich panel or otherwise). This can be carried out by manufacturers of building elements (façade elements, roof elements, windows). This leads to a process as depicted in Figure 2.

In order to enable that semi-fabricates for all possible IPV end products can be manufactured on the same programmable production line, it is essential that the design of the semi-fabricates is based on the principle of back-contacting. In the mass customization approach the front-end process has a much higher volume throughput compared to the individual small scale production lines of Figure 1. This much higher volume enables investments in automation and Industry 4.0 principles. Scale effects and acceleration of the learning curve leads then to a cost breakthrough for the IPV products.

For PV manufacturing we envisage manufacturing as a two-step approach where bespoke PV laminates (semi-fabricates) are mass-manufactured. In a next step, these laminates are integrated into IPV products at using technologies that are standard for manufacturing such products. Figure 3 illustrates this approach in a schematic way. In this approach we choose for foil-based semi-fabricates because manufacturers of building elements are equipped to work with foils and sheets. With the PV-laminates we link into their production methods directly.

Project coordinator TNO brought into the project a mass-customization pilot line (see Figure 4), however this pilot line still needs to be adapted to accommodate back-contacting in the manufacturing process.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

There are no results beyond the state of the art (yet).

Overview of the first part of the Mass Customization pilot line.

Schematic representation of the mass customization approach for IPV manufacturing.