Heliatek, a company working in the production and commercialisation of organic solar film, has announced the largest BIOPV – Building Integrated OPV – installation of its kind. The HeliaFilms were installed in Heliatek’s Dresden headquarters. They were laminated into glass by AGC Glass Europe, the European branch of AGC (the world’s largest producer of flat glass) and a long-term strategic business partner of Heliatek.
“Heliatek’s solar film is the ideal solution for building integrated solar installations (BIPV). The durability of HeliaFilm and its superior harvesting factor make it the film of choice for a number of building and construction material companies. We are proud to advance together with our strategic partner AGC Glass Europe on this path to a modern sustainable building envelope,” commented Thibaud le Seguillon, CEO of Heliatek.
“Organic PV is much less energy intensive to manufacture compared with crystalline silicon and HeliaFilm is ideally suited for glass curtain walls of all kinds. Its superior low light sensitivity and excellent high temperature performance makes it the material of choice for a number of BIPV applications,” added Frederic Bonnefoy, product manager active glass at AGC Glass Europe.
The headquarter of the company in Dresden, Germany, was chosen for installing the first HeliaFilm glass fac¸ade on an East facing fac¸ade in order to demonstrate the superior harvesting factor under less-than-ideal mounting conditions that often occur in BIPV applications.
A sophisticated data logging system tracks the films’ and ambient temperatures, the intensity of the solar irradiation as well as the power generated. It will be directly consumed by Heliatek to power office illumination throughout the year.
