Insolight's Breakthrough Solar Tech Wins €10.6m in EU Funding
scroll south
The startup's photovoltaic tech gets €10.6m in EU funding, via the HIPERION project coordinated by the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology CSEM, to scale production of its breakthrough solar cells and show manufacturers how to adapt existing production to collect 50 percent more energy by panel size.
The European Union has awarded €10.6 million in funding to HIPERION. This grant will aid in establishing a pilot assembly line to bring breakthrough photovoltaic technology, designed by Swiss startup Insolight, closer to market. HIPERION was set up by a 16-member consortium of research organizations and leading industry partners and is being coordinated by CSEM. It will ultimately strengthen the competitiveness of the EU’s solar power industry in the high performance segment.
The technology developed by Swiss startup Insolight, tested under concentrator standard test conditions in the pre-production phase, achieves 29 percent efficiency. This is well above the efficiency levels of standard photovoltaic panels, which typically reach 18–20 percent.
The company’s system uses a planar optical micro-tracking process that concentrates sunlight on multi-junction solar cells mounted on top of a conventional silicon back plane. Insolight’s solar panels are highly efficient under direct sunlight and can harvest energy under cloudy conditions as well, which is not the case for standard concentration systems.
Insolight has proven the effectiveness of its technology through extensive outdoor trials and at pilot installations. Its panels can be installed on standard rooftop or ground-mounted racks, or as an overlay on other solar panels.
Next step: large-scale production
The primary aim of HIPERION is to scale up the production of Insolight’s technology by showing solar panel manufacturers how they can adapt their existing production lines. “In addition to developing a pilot assembly line, we will also further demonstrate the performance and reliability of our innovation through qualification tests and several commercial pilot sites across Europe,” says Laurent Coulot, the startup’s CEO.
Venture Kick interviewed Coulot in February of this year.
Venture Kick interviewed Coulot in February of this year.
What is Insolight's core innovation and mission?
Insolight aims at bringing the most efficient solar module on the rooftop market, to make solar electricity more affordable. Our approach achieves high performance, versatility and cost-effectiveness by combining our patented optical system and an array of tiny space-grade photovoltaic cells, typically used in satellites. By significantly boosting the energy yield, Insolight’s panels will deliver more energy and higher investment returns compared to mainstream PV modules.
Your panels set a new standard for commercial solar, what kind of opportunities does 29 percent efficiency open?
Our team has achieved a decisive step, bringing the product from a lab prototype to full-size solar panels, installed outdoor and monitored 24/7. The modules have been extensively tested and successfully endured heat-waves, winter conditions, and storms. It is key to make such validation in real outdoor environment and it sets the stage for large-scale industrialization. The efficiency validation of 29 percent breaks the ceiling of mainstream photovoltaic modules, which typically have an efficiency of 17-19 percent in similar conditions. This performance can reduce solar electricity costs by up to 30 percent on rooftops.
What are your next steps to bring these panels to market?
We are starting to discuss with several solar manufacturers to license our technology. This can drastically speed up our market entry, leveraging their manufacturing capabilities and know-how. Our technology involves a few extra assembly steps, which can be integrated at the end of existing production lines. In order to convince those partners, we need to demonstrate a blueprint solution, which dilutes the technological risks. We are therefore preparing an industrialization plan and aim to demonstrate the modules assembly for large-scale production.
Venture Kick supported you in 2016, did it help you to get where you are today?
VentureKick has been instrumental in our success; the program gave us all the tools to elaborate our business case and communicate our value proposition. The Kicker Camps are especially useful, with very intense and dedicated training sessions, preparing us well for our financing round.
Insolight has received supported from European Union (H2020, Solar- ERA.Net, Eurostars, Climate KIC) and Swiss federal programs (Innosuisse, Innovaud, SPEI, FIT, Venture Leaders Technology, CleanTech Alps), as well as the European Space Agency (ESA BIC) and EPFL (Innogrant).
