Technical Feasibility
During the past six months, key technologies have been identified, among those studied and tested by Teknisolar in the past five years, as realistically applicable to build the first fully automated PV assembly line, with no in-process batch operations or need for human intervention, using many of Teknisolar proprietary and patented or patentable know-how.
Several test programmes took place to:
• Improve the performance of the laminator, by means of new and innovative pressing and curing systems
• Study the manufacturing cycle in order to optimise it to the minimum possible time.
• Upgrade the R&D laminator with the new design and findings.
• Cooperate with Megacell to assess the valid use of BiSon and IBC cells with our technology
• Verify the quality of the PV panels produced on the upgraded R&D line
The potential impact of the work done during the six months period will be:
• Innovative, highly automatic, low cost manufacturing of solar panels
• High adhesion of panel layers and no ‘edge-pinching’ effects, no wrinkles, voids, breakages, bubbles in the manufactured solar panels, leading to extended solar panels life to over 40 years (confirmed by means of accelerated ageing tests).
• No visible cosmetic defects on products.
• Use of advanced BiSoN and IBC solar cells, which will allow for high efficiency generation of electrical energy, well over current limits. The use of each of these newly developed solar cells and the potential combination of both technologies, will allow producing low cost mono- crystalline panels of up to 350 Wp.
The fundamental Teknisolar technology is represented by the high performance new Multi-stage Membrane-less Laminator called “Robostak Generation IV”. At the end of the present semester Teknisolar filed a new patent application (Application N. 102015000082473 filed on 11/12/2015, CCIAA: Milan, Italy). A previous patent application on the same subject had been filed in December 2014 (Application number: MI2014A002113 filed 10/12/2014, CCIAA: Milan, Italy).
Other key technologies evaluated for their possible use in the next project phases are:
o Glass tempering line – for a complete manufacturing integration starting from the raw glass panes.
o Multi-stringer – The process speed is up to 5400 cells/hour. Teknisolar are not aware of stringers in the market having such production capacity and productivity.
o Automatic soldering of bus bars and ribbons – Soldering equipment with simple construction criteria and low capital cost.
o Automatic lay-up system – High efficiency layup system, fully designed and tested by Teknisolar.
o Automatic application of the Junction Box – A specially designed junction box with the highest water ingress protection (grade of protection: IP68) and suitable for application onto the panel without any manual intervention.
o Panel manufacturing based on “BiSoN” cells (Bifacial Solar cells based on monocrystalline on N-Type silicon cells) and “IBC” cells Interdigitated Back Contact Solar Cells.
Economic Feasibility
Teknisolar’s PV panel manufacturing lines will allow clients to produce highly efficient photovoltaic modules. The PV panels will be less expensive and at least 20% more efficient than the average currently on the market. Furthermore, the longevity of the panels manufactured on our lines will be at least double (40 years and even 50 years) than that of existing panels.
The panels manufactured on Teknisolar’s lines, when deployed on large scale, e.g. solar farm/field, will overpass the grid parity barrier and, crucially, will not require the support of a feed-in tariff mechanism to achieve parity.
In brief, the high quality and low cost solar panels manufactured on the new line will contribute to decarbonise and make the European energy system more efficient in a sustainable way.
Other key feasibility aspects
Other Key feasibility aspects to achieve the project’s target will include:
• Raise market awareness with regards to our new laminator and to the other special equipment, demonstrating their potential technical and technological benefits for both customers and end users. Several proposals to achieve this target have been made and will be fully described in the Business Plan.
• Promote the sale of complete lines, fully or partially automated, to customers in fast growing markets and particularly in India. A special focus will be needed for manufacturers of thin film glass-glass panels in USA and EU. A Marketing and Sales Manager will be added to the Management Team and a group of skilled employees will be hired for this purpose.
• Establish collaboration and partnerships with component/materials suppliers and with system integrators for further development and for the commercialisation of front-end lines (especially our multi-stringer system, the Teknisolar Robostak laminators and solar simulator system). Several companies have been contacted and during the six months’ period we have received expressions of interest from three of them (Bridgestone, Grenzenbach, Von Ardenne).
