Textile-based solar cells on a roll in Germany

Fraunhofer researchers and their partners envision the thin-film photovoltaics being used on lorry tarpaulin to generate the electricity consumed by the driver on the road or parked up for the night. Similarly, building facades could be covered with photovoltaic textiles in place of concrete render.

Key to this advance is the use of textile industry processes to fabricate the pliable devices, which has brought Fraunhofer Institutes and partners together under the PhotoTex project to find viable solutions.

“There are a number of processes that enable solar cells to be incorporated in coatings applied to textiles,” said Dr Lars Rebenklau, group manager for system integration and electronic packaging at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS).

“That might sound easy,” added Dr Jonas Sundqvist, group manager for thin-film technology at Fraunhofer IKTS, “but the machines in the textile industry are designed to handle huge rolls of fabric - five or six meters wide and up to 1000m in length. And during the coating process, the textiles have to withstand temperatures of around 200 °Celsius.