Flisom
Flisom is a developer and manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV) thin film solar cells, located near Zurich, Switzerland. The company produces high-efficiency CIGS thin film solar modules on flexible plastic foil using proprietary roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques.
These light-weight solar modules suggest the feasibility of reducing module costs below €0.35 ($0.39) per watt-peak (Wp) and to bring down the overall costs for fully installed solar PV systems below €0.60/Wp ($0.67/Wp). This is about half the cost of conventional PV technology based on crystalline silicon.
Potential applications for flexible CIGS modules include utility-scale solar farms, building integrated and applied photovoltaics (BIPV, BAPV), as well as transportation and portable power systems.
History
Flisom AG was founded in 2005 as a spin-off company of ETH Zurich, and has a long-standing research partnership with Empa – the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology, which has been developing this type of flexible solar cell to world record efficiencies of 20.4%. The world record for CIGS cells in laboratory conditions has since been further increased by ZSW () and stands at 21.7% as of July 2015. Since this record was achieved on glass substrate, Flisom`s research partner Empa is still the holder of the world record with 20.4% cell efficiency on a polymeric substrate.
Technology
The company's production technology is based on a roll-to-roll manufacturing process of flexible solar modules, involving deposition of thin films of CIGS absorber material onto a polymer foil substrate made of polyimide. The key processes of depositing the absorber material in this manner has been proprietarily developed by the company itself. As of 2015, a 15 MW pilot production line is being commissioned in a new facility in Niederhasli, near Zurich, Switzerland.
See also
- List of CIGS companies
- Solar Frontier
- Thin film solar cell
- Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology