Printed Solar Panels for Building Integration

The project was led by the Australian SME Solafast, in partnership with CSIRO and Norwood Industries. The aim of this project was to develop solar panel-integrated premium roofing products, while progressing the printed solar cell technology to pilot-scale demonstration stage. A new-to-the-world premium roofing product was developed. This product takes advantage of the unique features of printed solar cell films (flexible, lightweight, low cost), integrating them into an innovative, safe and easy to install roofing product for wide-span commercial structures. These commercial structures typically cannot support the weight of conventional silicon solar panels.

Major milestones were reached during this project, including roll-to-roll printing 500 m of solar panel film at CSIRO and developing an in-line lamination method to integrate printed solar panels into the roofing sheet. An example of innovative CSIRO technology value-adding to established Australian manufacturing.