Midsummer enters agreement with Rusnano

Midsummer AB of Järfälla, near Stockholm, Sweden – a provider of turnkey production lines as well as flexible, lightweight copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar panels for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) – has entered into a frame agreement with the Moscow-based Russian government-owned technology firm Rusnano Group and its Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs (FIEP) to develop the non-silicon flexible photovoltaics market in Russia and the Eurasian Union.

Rusnano seeks to use Midsummer’s technology to promote and develop the manufacturing of lightweight flexible CIGS PV cells and modules to set up production and end-user product development in Russia and in other countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). Midsummer will also source panels for worldwide distribution of panels manufactured in Russia and the region.

“This could open up a whole new market for our advanced manufacturing equipment for light, flexible, robust and energy-efficient thin-film solar cells,” believes Midsummer’s CEO Sven Lindström. “Our DUO system has taken the position as the most widespread manufacturing tool for thin-film flexible CIGS solar cells in the world,” he claims. “We are especially impressed with Rusnano’s focus on the building-integrated possibilities of thin-film technology, a vision that we share.”

Rusnano is a government-owned joint-stock company established in 2011 as a $5bn private equity and venture capital evergreen fund by the government of Russia and aimed at commercializing developments in nanotechnology. Other Nordic energy companies cooperating with Rusnano are Vestas of Denmark and Fortum of Finland.

“The market for flexible solar panels designed to be installed on buildings which are still under construction and on existing structures is currently one of the fastest-growing markets in the energy industry,” notes Ruslan Titov, deputy CEO of FIEP, which promotes Russia’s economy development in nanotechnology and related high-tech sectors. “Several research groups and companies in Europe and the USA have made breakthroughs in photovoltaic technology in recent years, breakthroughs which have made it possible to install solar panels in places where we had not been able to before – on unexploited roofs, facades, and windows,” he adds. “We are systematically developing non-silicon flexible photovoltaics in Russia, the only way feasible – first we transfer and localize technologies, then we upgrade the technology and increase the scale of production in order to meet the demands of the growing market, including export to Midsummer.”

Tags: CIGS Thin-film PV

Visit: www.midsummer.se

Visit: https://en.rusnano.com/about/fiep