ML System to build BIPV module factory in Poland

Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK), Poland’s state-owned national development bank, has agreed to provide PLN 50 million in funds to Polish BIPV cell and module manufacturer ML System. The company will use the funds to build a BIPV panel factory in Zaczernie, a village in southeastern Poland, according to a BGK press release.

The module manufacturer will begin construction on the new facility in November, with completion scheduled by the end of 2020, BGK said. The factory will produce thin-film BIPV cells and panels based on ML System's quantum dot technology.

The Polish company has operated an R&D center since 2012. The facility focuses on testing PV cell characteristics and spectral response, as well as testing of PV cell voltage and current characteristics, thin layer deposition, and aging/weathering tests for PV cells and panels.

Its research has resulted in numerous domestic and European patent claims, as well as scientific cooperation with leading Polish and foreign research entities, including Fraunhofer-Institut für Solare Energiesysteme ISE, the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences, the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, and Jagiellonian University.

The company listed shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in late June 2018. It raised PLN 34.6 million through the IPO. “Individual investors allocated 90,488 shares during the IPO, and 1,191,380 shares went to institutional investors,” ML System said at the time.

Last October, ML System announced that the Polish Patent Office had granted it a patent for its method of producing BIPV modules with the use of quantum dots technology.