Solar PV Manufacturing Industry back to province of Noord-Brabant

Status project

March 2023 – February 2026

In cooperation with

Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), Dutch province of Noord-Brabant

The acceleration of the roll-out of solar PV energy in Europe and in the Netherlands is required to meet national and regional sustainability goals. We need to fit large amounts of solar energy into our living environment and energy system in a way that is economically affordable, socially acceptable and technically feasible. This challenge goes hand in hand with opportunities for the high-tech knowledge economy in the Brainport region.

Webinar 9 September 2024: Solar energy in Brabant

The province of Noord-Brabant is bringing back large-scale solar industry to the Netherlands. Goal: a 2 GW factory by 2027-2028 with new solar technologies. Curious about the opportunities for the manufacturing and building sectors?

Mass customization

The strategy for ‘Solar PV Manufacturing Industry back to province of Noord-Brabant’ is based on two pillars: mass customization and perovskite solar cells. Mass customization is the concept that allows to produce a wide variety of integrated solar products based on mass customization. This approach is based on automated programmable production lines that produce semi-finished products for integration into finished products.

Promising material perovskite

Solar cells based on the material perovskite is a very promising thin film technology for cost-effective and high efficient flexible solar products. Perovskite is also the leading candidate to be used on top of silicon solar PV cells in a so-called tandem technology. With this tandem technology, we aim to achieve production of solar panels with at least 28% efficiency in no more than 5 years. TNO, together with the partners in partnership Solliance, has already realised tandem cells at laboratory scale with an efficiency of over 30%.

Solar foils demonstration

The aim of the ‘Solar PV Manufacturing Industry back to province of Noord-Brabant’ project is to boost the further development of mass customization and perovskites. We will demonstrate the pilot production of mass customized perovskite solar foils with the aim of establishing an industrial ecosystem in the Noord-Brabant region. This work will be done as much as possible in cooperation with the Brabant Development Agency (BOM) and many companies in the Brainport region, maximising the chances of this value chain emerging in the province of Noord-Brabant.

Blueprint

With the mass customization pilot line for perovskite solar films, we are developing a blueprint that can serve to build future commercial production lines. These will soon produce semi-finished products for integrated solar products on an industrial scale. In doing so, we are unlocking a new route to increase the surface area with solar cell applications. Because we will eventually be able to apply fast production processes to produce customized products, it is possible to reduce the cost price per square metre.

Cooperation

We aim to further expand the solar energy ecosystem of companies in the Brainport and neighbouring regions in cooperation with the BOM. The BOM, as a driver of innovation is explicitly involved in this product development and plays an important role in industrialisation and opportunities to bring the solar PV manufacturing industry back to this region.