From pv magazine USA
Tandem PV has opened a commercial demonstration factory in Fremont, California, marking a transition for perovskite-silicon technology from laboratory development to repeatable manufacturing at scale.
The 464.5 m facility features approximately 40 MW of annual nameplate capacity and is producing tandem solar panels that are roughly 60 times larger than the company’s initial research-scale devices.
The company has reported internal testing results of 29.7% efficiency and aims to provide a higher-output alternative to standard silicon modules as land and balance-of-system costs continue to represent the majority of utility-scale project expenses.
The manufacturing expansion comes at a critical moment for the domestic solar supply chain as rising electricity demand, fueled by AI workloads and data center growth, places renewed pressure on capacity. Project developers are increasingly looking for hardware innovations that can maximize energy production from a fixed footprint.
The Fremont site is designed to validate large-format production and accelerate market adoption by demonstrating that the advanced materials can be manufactured reliably within the United States. While the industry has navigated long-standing questions regarding the stability of perovskites, the move toward commercial-scale production reflects a pivot toward hardware that can offer lower levelized costs of energy through increased efficiency.
The company said it plans to ship initial modules for customer validation trials later this year, with a goal of reaching high-volume manufacturing by 2028.
Federal and state policy continues to play a role in the reshoring of advanced solar manufacturing, with the company receiving support from the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission. As global energy markets remain volatile, the push for domestic leadership in next-generation solar technology remains a strategy for strengthening supply chain resilience. The facility represents a broader effort within the sector to move beyond incremental silicon gains and deliver the kind of breakthrough engineering necessary to meet shifting system reliability needs.
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