Royal DSM, the global Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company, today announced that it joins the Solliance CIGS Research program. It has entered into a 3-year agreement to participate in this alliance that focuses on developing new solutions for solar modules. DSM is already developing proprietary innovative materials for the solar industry to increase module efficiencies to lower the cost of the energy produced, allowing for a further penetration of solar energy.
Solliance is an alliance of TNO, TU/e, Holst Centre, ECN, imec and Forschungszentrum Jülich for research and development in the field of thin film photovoltaic solar energy (PV) in the ELAT-region (Eindhoven- Leuven-Aachen triangle).
Solliance focusses on fundamental research in materials science at universities and research institutes, the development of high-throughput production technology, design of high-precision production equipment, and testing and monitoring of devices and systems. The key aim is to improve the efficiency of these energy capturing technologies and demonstrate their manufacture at (semi) industrial scale. At the same time it emphasizes sustainable production technologies and the use of sustainable materials.
Solliance’s research in the field of CIGS (copper-indium/gallium-diselenide/sulfide) ranges from fundamentals of materials composition to details of production technologies. In the lab, research has reached a yield of about 20% efficiency, but in mass production, this figure is still elusive. As a substrate, all types of materials, both flexible (like metals and plastics) and non-flexible (like glass) are being investigated. Solliance aims to achieve major results in development of sophisticated materials and deposition methods with better reproducibility and uniformity, lower process temperatures, roll-to-roll production, development of non-vacuum processing, scaling up and fully printed cells, and process control and standardization.
