Dave Savastano08.21.12
Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier, along with Saxony’s prime minister, Stanislaw Tillich, visited Heliatek GmbH in Dresden on Aug. 17, 2012. Heliatek’s innovative products will support the energy transformation towards sustainability in new ways never thought possible before.
Heliatek manufactures energy harvesting components made of flexible solar films based on organic semiconductor materials. The company inaugurated its first production facility last March in Dresden in the presence of Prime Minister Tillich. The state-of-the-art manufacturing line is now up and running, with the plant carrying out the scheduled trial production. This visit emphasizes the German government’s commitment to continue to provide extensive support for the research and development of environmentally friendly energy technologies.
Thibaud Le Séguillon, CEO of Heliatek GmbH, and Dr. Martin Pfeiffer, co-founder and CTO, gave Altmaier and Tillich a tour of the production facility. As Heliatek is on schedule with commissioning and trial operations for production, the company was able to present its guests with finished solar films.
“Our first customers and partners are early adopters. We work with them closely to make our product a de-facto standard as solar energy harvesting components,” explained Le Séguillon. “Energiewende goes beyond replacing nuclear power plants with wind and solar farms. Heliatek solar films will be used in applications never served before by traditional PV.”
Thanks to the film’s ultra-lightweight, transparency and superior performance, Heliatek’s customers will be able to integrate the solar films for example into building and construction materials, car roofs and street furniture. The first solar films coming out of the line will be used for concrete facade projects as well as for pilots and prototypes with partners.
“Our production is ready, now we intend to raise an additional €60 million from current and new investors to significantly increase the capacity,” said Le Séguillon about the next step for Heliatek. “We are operating the world’s first production line, in which organic solar films are manufactured in a roll-to-roll process using vacuum deposition. Our production readiness is a major milestone and allows us to offer our energy harvesting components to our partners for application development by Q3 2012 as scheduled.”
“Our production process is similar to the one used by OLED today, but with the addition of the roll-to-roll element,” added Dr. Pfeiffer. “This is important to mitigate the production ramp-up risks. Heliatek is the recognized world leader in OPV technology. We have an independently confirmed cell efficiency of 10.7 %, a product which passed IEC lifetime tests in our laboratories, and external measurement data that confirms the superior harvesting factor compared to other PV technologies. Our chemistry and physics R&D labs allow us to continuously extend our lead in organic photovoltaics and to improve our already strong patent portfolio; it covers our in-house developed and synthesized molecules, our cell structure and even some of our processes. That’s how we are creating a highly defendable entry barrier for anyone trying to copy us.”
Altmaier concluded by saying that Heliatek was an impressive example for the large development potential that the photovoltaic technology still has to offer. He also said that Germany may not be able to compete with many countries for the cheapest products; however, Germany is at the forefront when it comes to competing for the best technology, and for state-of-the-art and ecological solutions.
Tillich agreed by saying that companies like Heliatek belong to a new generation of the solar industry and are the best evidence that Saxony is on top of German technology development.
Heliatek manufactures energy harvesting components made of flexible solar films based on organic semiconductor materials. The company inaugurated its first production facility last March in Dresden in the presence of Prime Minister Tillich. The state-of-the-art manufacturing line is now up and running, with the plant carrying out the scheduled trial production. This visit emphasizes the German government’s commitment to continue to provide extensive support for the research and development of environmentally friendly energy technologies.
Thibaud Le Séguillon, CEO of Heliatek GmbH, and Dr. Martin Pfeiffer, co-founder and CTO, gave Altmaier and Tillich a tour of the production facility. As Heliatek is on schedule with commissioning and trial operations for production, the company was able to present its guests with finished solar films.
“Our first customers and partners are early adopters. We work with them closely to make our product a de-facto standard as solar energy harvesting components,” explained Le Séguillon. “Energiewende goes beyond replacing nuclear power plants with wind and solar farms. Heliatek solar films will be used in applications never served before by traditional PV.”
Thanks to the film’s ultra-lightweight, transparency and superior performance, Heliatek’s customers will be able to integrate the solar films for example into building and construction materials, car roofs and street furniture. The first solar films coming out of the line will be used for concrete facade projects as well as for pilots and prototypes with partners.
“Our production is ready, now we intend to raise an additional €60 million from current and new investors to significantly increase the capacity,” said Le Séguillon about the next step for Heliatek. “We are operating the world’s first production line, in which organic solar films are manufactured in a roll-to-roll process using vacuum deposition. Our production readiness is a major milestone and allows us to offer our energy harvesting components to our partners for application development by Q3 2012 as scheduled.”
“Our production process is similar to the one used by OLED today, but with the addition of the roll-to-roll element,” added Dr. Pfeiffer. “This is important to mitigate the production ramp-up risks. Heliatek is the recognized world leader in OPV technology. We have an independently confirmed cell efficiency of 10.7 %, a product which passed IEC lifetime tests in our laboratories, and external measurement data that confirms the superior harvesting factor compared to other PV technologies. Our chemistry and physics R&D labs allow us to continuously extend our lead in organic photovoltaics and to improve our already strong patent portfolio; it covers our in-house developed and synthesized molecules, our cell structure and even some of our processes. That’s how we are creating a highly defendable entry barrier for anyone trying to copy us.”
Altmaier concluded by saying that Heliatek was an impressive example for the large development potential that the photovoltaic technology still has to offer. He also said that Germany may not be able to compete with many countries for the cheapest products; however, Germany is at the forefront when it comes to competing for the best technology, and for state-of-the-art and ecological solutions.
Tillich agreed by saying that companies like Heliatek belong to a new generation of the solar industry and are the best evidence that Saxony is on top of German technology development.