Vikram Solar ties up with France's CEA

India's Vikram Solar has signed a collaboration agreement with French Alternatie Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) for innovative technology research and development in solar energy.
The pact, signed yesterday during French President Emmanuel Macron's India visit, is for enhanced research and development in high efficiency crystalline silicon cells, modules, systems and a host of high efficiency generation and storage technologies for French and Indian markets, Vikram Solar said in a statement.
"Under the MoU, CEA will share their know-how and technologies in the field of solar energy, storage, smart grid and thermal efficiency while Vikram Solar will apply these technologies in large volume manufacturing with a wider objective of improving solar photovoltaic cells and modules to perform at record-efficiency in energy conversion and simultaneously developing battery solutions by increasing their energy storage capacity," it said.

Other advanced research and development areas of collaboration will include crystallization and wafering, mono and bi-facial modules, agri-photovoltaics and solar mobility as well as exploring new competitive materials in order to reduce costs.
Gyanesh Chaudhary, MD & CEO, Vikram Solar Limited, said the association with CEA will strengthen the company's focus on newer technology.
Christophe Ggout, Deputy Chairman of the CEA, said: "Our association with Vikram Solar comes at a time when the need for renewables is at an all-time high in India as well as globally. This is a perfect time for us to leverage our strength in research and development and fuse it with Vikram Solar's long standing position as a leading global solar module player with key focus on quality, technology and innovation."

The CEA carries out research on thermal and photovoltaic solar energy, in support of industrial companies in the sector. In the field of solar thermal energy, the CEA has, within the National Institute of Solar Energy (INES), an R&D platform dedicated to the optimisation of solar thermal systems.

The CEA also carries out research on the production of electricity using a thermodynamic process known as concentrating solar power technology.
In the field of photovoltaics, the CEA's research is focusing on improving the output and reducing the costs of photovoltaic modules, and also anticipating the problems of integration in the grid which will arise following a massive insertion of renewables in the energy mix.

This work, carried out at INES, makes use of its technological platform to manufacture cells and modules and its software platform to simulate the behaviour of a future grid with renewable energy sources, as well as storage and consumption equipments, the statement added.