Swiss PV start-up Flisom inaugurates pilot plant - financed by Tata Group

The figures are impressive: from 15 to 50+ employees in just over 1.5 years, a brand-new 4’500 m2 pilot production plant in Niederhasli near Zurich with a production capacity of 15 MW (megawatts) in solar energy and another financing round of CHF 10 million. That’s, in a nutshell, Flisom’s development in the last two years, culminating in the pilot plant’s inauguration on 11 June in the presence of Swiss State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation, Mauro Dell'Ambrogio, and the President of the Government Council of the Canton Zurich, Ernst Stocker.

The company, which started out as a ETH Zurich spin-off in 2005 and grew to its current size at Empa’s technology center glaTec in Dübendorf, is developing roll-to-roll production technologies for low-cost, high-performance CIGS thin film solar cells on flexible plastic foil. With its roll-to-roll manufacturing the company is capable of producing 1 meter-wide rolls – an unprecedented capacity.

A veteran in thin film photovoltaics with 35 years of experience, Flisom founder (and Head of Empa’s «Thin Film and Photovoltaics» lab) Ayodhya N. Tiwari is convinced that these cells have great potential for providing highly efficient solar modules and solar systems with low installation costs. Development trends and technological progress for CIGS technology suggest the feasibility of solar module costs below €0.35/Wp (Watt peak) and installed system costs below € 0.6/Wp in the near future. Potential markets and applications for Flisom’s flexible solar module manufacturing technology include utility scale solar farms, building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), building applied photovoltaics (BAPV), transportation and portable power – and thus a thus far untapped market potential of several billion Euros.

Another financing round for further growth
The recently announced investment, which is the fourth funding round for Flisom, comes from the company’s existing strategic investor, Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate company. The round is following an earlier investment of CHF 42.5 million just two years ago «With the investment received in 2013, Flisom refurbished an old factory building of 4500 square meters – which we just inaugurated – with a number of roll-to-roll processing machines. At the same time, we are developing the technology further on 50 cm-wide rolls on our machines on the Empa campus», says Flisom’s Chief Operating Officer Sudheer Kumar. Adds Flisom Chief Executive Officer, Ulfert Rühle: «After the successful installation of machines and other infrastructure in Niederhasli the next step is to transfer the process know-how on these high-tech machines using specifically customized designs. Some of the machines are based on many years of development by experienced experts, innovative proprietary designs and complex engineering making them unique for achieving cost- and performance-efficient targets for a breakthrough manufacturing.» The 15MW plant will serve as a blueprint for establishing larger production plants with a capacity of well over 100 MW.

Picture: EMPA