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Belectric plans organic PV production in Germany

Following Belectric’s takeover of Konarka Technologies GmbH, the company plans to set up organic photovoltaic (OPV) production facilities in Germany in the coming months.

Belectric will begin OPV manufacturing in the coming months.

Konarka

Belectric announced on October 22 that it had taken the German subsidiary of U.S.-based OPV manufacturer, Konarka Technologies Inc. over.

While the photovoltaic systems integrator would not divulge the purchase price, a spokesperson did reveal to pv magazine that all 16 employees of Konarka would be transferred to Belectric OPV GmbH and will be kept in Nuremburg.

Currently, the Nuremburg OPV site has no production facilities, and the German subsidiary had focused on R&D and distribution of Konarka’s Power Plastic products. However, the spokesperson says Belectric will establish production there in the coming months. They declined to provide any further details on investment or production capacity, however.

Responding to why Belectric decided to take the OPV manufacturer over, the spokesperson said, "Due to the interesting applications that can be realized with regard to the unique features of OPV, like transparency, flexibility, formability and last but not least the ability to integrate OPV into other products with the promise of low cost at the end of the day. This opens up very interesting opportunities besides the today known application of PV in a large number of different markets."

On October 22, Belectric announced that the new company would be headed by CEO, Ralph Pätzold. The first phase of development is expected to see an increase of the service life of the organic cells. The first revenue, meanwhile, is expected to be generated in the second half of next year.

Konarka Technologies GmbH filed for insolvency at the start of July, just a month after its U.S. parent company, Konarka Technologies Inc. announced it had filed for bankruptcy protection under chapter 7 of the U.S. Federal bankruptcy laws.