Dyesol and Corus make progress with their project

The joint steel roofing BIPV manufacturing project between Dyesol UK and steel producer Corus is making progress as per the plans.

The project, which is focusing on commercial manufacturing of dye solar cells (DSC) on steel, is moving towards the completion of production development. This process is scheduled to be complete by May 2010. The initiative is supported by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) with a total of £5 million.

Going forward, there are plans to conduct extensive production trials which will be undertaken on the pilot production line at Shotton and the product manufactured will be subjected to acceptance testing and placement on demonstration sites.

In addition to the DSC technology design for the project, Dyesol is also the exclusive supplier of DSC materials to Corus. The companies will jointly commercialise the products worldwide.

Based on the existing coated steel market of over 1 billion square metres per annum, the annual addressable market is forecast to be over 200 million square metres of photovoltaic product, according to Dyesol. The advantages of DSC in this market are: lower cost of manufacturing plant, lower production cost, better performance in normal solar conditions and a range of natural colours. Dyesol says its technology can be directly incorporated into buildings by replacing conventional glass panels or metal sheets rather than taking up roof or extra land area.