PV Solar panel tech company Flisom AG has unveiled a range of new solar panels in Switzerland – they are 98% thinner and lighter than currently available conventional solar panels. The jet black modules are fully rollable and customisable and will be a fantastic choice for a range of applications where the old panels wouldn’t have been suitable. Although more expensive than mass produced panels, the solar panel technology and manufacturing process is improving rapidly and it’s really exciting to see these live in the market!
About the Flisom Solar Panels
Flisom is located in Dübendorf, Switzerland, and was founded in 2005. The privately held company has been developing and manufacturing PV thin film solar cells for over 10 years now and are leaders in their field. Since 2013 they’ve been developing proprietary manufacturing equipment and components using a ‘roll to roll’ manufacturing process which replicates the CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide solar cell) solar tech on an industrial scale. This results in thin, flexible, highly efficient (up to 50x power to weight ratio compared with silicon PV) panels, even when compared with traditional crystalline silicon solar cells.
Flisom, along with their research partner Empa, achieved a world-record efficiency of 20.4% in a flexible CIGS solar cell – they are pioneers in commercialising this technology which was previously far too expensive to be viable for business.
According to Flisom the new panels can be as light as 160 grams per square metre, in comparison with standard solar panels which can be up to 15kg per square metre. They’re also ultra-thin (as in under 2mm per cell).
Flisom CEO Rahul Budhwar said: “We’re also offering this technology as a platform, which means it can be customised for the needs of different applications and products so you can embed them or custom create this for exactly the way that application needs solar – rather than taking standard blocks of large panels.
We’ll keep an eye out to see some case studies of Flimsom solar panels out in the wild and be sure to kepe you updated on how they go!
