By Charles W. Thurston
Dresden-based Heliatek, which is refining organic pho- tovoltaic cells for its HeliaFilm, recently raised $88 million in mixed funding to increase its roll-to-roll
manufacturing capacity to one million square meters of film
per year. The company aims to promote use of its film in the
building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) market and in the automotive industry.
The new funding will yield a new 1.2m-wide roll-to-roll system, apart from the existing 30cm line that has been in operation since 2012, producing 250nm thick flexible photovoltaic
film. The film is lightweight, flexible, and effective at harvesting
solar energy under low light conditions, yet is more stable under
higher temperatures that traditional silicon solar cells.
Among contributors to the funding were: fund lead innogy;
Engie; BNP Paribas; CEE Group; AQTON; BASF; eCAPITAL;
HTGF; TUDAG and Wellington Partners. The total included a
loan of € 20 million from the European Investment Bank under
its EU Finance for Innovators (InnovFin) program, which is a
joint initiative by the EIB and the European Commission.
The company reports that it has achieved a 13.2 percent
cell efficiency from a multi-junction cell with three absorber
layers in lab, compared with current silicon solar cell efficiencies in the high 20 percent range. Heliatek now produces
solar film at an 8.2 percent efficiency, and aims to boost the
efficiency by roughly two percent per year until 2018, when
large scale production is planned. The company is developing
molecules that absorb ultraviolet light, to be included in it
film along with molecules it has already developed to absorb
infrared wave lengths.
The production process involves vacuum deposition guided by laser in a plastic film, which is manufactured as a roll-to-roll product. The film is comprised of homogenous layers
of small-molecule oligomers combined at low temperatures
without the use of solvents, which printing processes require.
Heliatek said that it deposits one gram of organic material
per square meter, which makes it a low cost solar competitor.
Company CEO Thibaud Le Seguillon said in an interview
after the new funding, “We know we are going to be cop-
ied but we want to make it difficult for friendly competition.
The only way we are going to keep being the world leader is
through R&D.”
Heliatek was created in July 2006 by the Technical
University of Dresden (IAPP) and the University of Ulm.
The company’s founding brought together internationally
renowned expertise in the fields of organic optoelectronics
and organic oligomer synthesis. In 2011 the company won
the German Future Prize and in 2015, the World Economic
Forum anointed Heliatek as a Technology Pioneer.
According to a Bloomberg profile, Heliatek’s partner,
vTrium Energy, is implementing a showcase BIPV project in
Singapore that is also the largest BIPV project in Asia. The
project is funded and supported by Jurong Town Corp. (JTC)
and the Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board of
Singapore (Springs). Some 12 kW of HeliaFilm will be in-
stalled on different parts of JTC’s Cleantech Park 1 and 2, as
well as along the Seletar Aerospace walkway. The film will be
installed in different colors on glass, on steel and on curved
polycarbonate, with several versions of transparency ranging
from full opaque to 15 percent or 30 percent transparency
levels. The Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore will
monitor the project. CW
HELIATEK to Build
New Solar Film Plant
