Featured in Powering AI – 03-2026

Solar’s living legacy

In early 2021, researchers at a university in Madrid recovered several bifacial PV modules manufactured by Spanish company Isofotón in 1987 that had been operating in different facilities. Following cleaning and characterization, 56 of the modules were installed on a fixed structure at the university, where they have been feeding energy into the grid since May 2021. pv magazine España’s Pilar Sanchez Molina visited the repurposed modules to tell their story.

By

Pilar Sánchez Molina

02 Mar 2026

Antecessor features 56 bifacial modules that are in very good condition despite being in use for more than 20 years. | Image: pv magazine/IES-UPM

As far back as the 1980s, and long before bifacial solar modules became widespread, Spain had already manufactured and installed them on rooftops, rural electrification poles, and small isolated microgrid projects. Almost 40 years later, in 2021, a group of researchers from the Solar Energy Institute of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (IES-UPM) decided to …

This article is part of pv+

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