News: Photovoltaics
15 January 2020
Midsummer announces completion of first installation of Bender SunWave solar roof panels
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 announced completion (at a townhouse outside Stockholm) of the first installation of Bender SunWave (solar panels fully integrated with roof tiles after a collaboration with Sweden-based roof manufacturer Benders). “If you didn’t know, you would never believe that there are solar panels on the roof – it looks like just any beautiful shingled roof,” says Benders’ CEO Ove Bender.
Last May, Midsummer announced a unique solar panel solution developed specifically for Sweden’s most popular 3-barrel roof tile, the Bender Palema. Since October, customized solar panels that precisely follow the shape of these roof tiles have been delivered from Midsummer’s new production facility, and now the first end-customer installation is complete.
The customized solar panels are brought to the market by Benders under the brand Bender SunWave and are installed as easily on an existing roof as on a new roof, it is claimed, resulting in completely integrated solar panels that are not visible or noticeable.
“The great interest for Palema SunWave and our other building-integrated solar products proves that solar panels are becoming like any other building material, with natural high expectations on both technical performance and aesthetics,” says Midsummer’s CEO Sven Lindström. “For us and our customers, it is instrumental to develop and supply solar roofs that are beautiful, which often means as invisible as possible to accentuate the natural beauty of the roofs,” he adds. “This is a key feature that our thin film technology enables but that framed silicon panels simply cannot achieve.”
The partnership with Benders is part of Midsummer’s new strategy to develop and manufacture solar panels both in-house and via contract manufacturers for sale through selected partners, in addition to the company’s core business of producing equipment for the manufacturing of solar cells. Midsummer claims that its DUO system is the world’s most widespread manufacturing tool for flexible CIGS solar cells.
