Flisom

Flisom is a developer and manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV) thin film solar cells located near Zürich, Switzerland, founded in 2005. The company produces high-efficiency CIGS thin film solar modules on flexible plastic foil using proprietary roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques.

The innovative manufacturing technology enables price competition with established c-si PV manufacturing systems at a comparatively smaller production scale. Furthermore, the lightweight, flexible, jet-black and thin solar panels potentially can bring down the overall costs for fully installed solar PV systems. This is about half the cost of conventional PV technology based on crystalline silicon.

Potential applications for flexible lightweight CIGS modules include building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), applied photovoltaics (BAPV), as well as customized solar panels for Transportation & Mobility and portable rollable 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 based in laboratory conditions has since been further increased by ZSW (Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung) 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.

In April 2023, Flisom sells its 15MW Zürich production facility to the US company Ascent Solar Technologies, together with the licensing of the associated rights to use the intellectual property.

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 Zürich, Switzerland.