Midsummer’s record orders in 2018 driven by California and southwest US markets

Midsummer AB of Järfälla, near Stockholm, Sweden – a provider of turnkey production lines as well as flexible, lightweight copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar panels for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) – has reported record order intake of SEK265m ($29.3m; €25,8m] for 2018, driven mainly by increasing demand for its end products in the US market (specifically California and southwestern USA), where solar panel manufacturing partner Sunflare of La Verne, CA, USA has released several new products.

“California is a huge market and the state is far ahead of other regions in both regulatory and technical terms,” says CEO & founder Sven Lindström. “All new homes built in California must have solar power installed from 1 January 2020 and the state has nearly half of US total installed solar power capacity,” he adds. “Our partner Sunflare is investing heavily in this region and has launched several new innovative products in this market that has received great interest.”

Solar energy accounts for nearly 17% of California’s total energy production. The installed capacity is expected to double in the USA in five years, and more than half of all new electricity in the USA today comes from solar energy. The payback time for a solar energy system in California is shorter than four years, while the systems have a technical lifetime of at least 25 years.

“We are witnessing a true revolution in renewable energy, with the United States as the driver, and the potential is simply enormous, not just in the southwestern United States but throughout the world,” Lindström says. “Solar energy is very competitive, even without subsidies and also in cold countries,” he adds. “The future lies in BIPV, building-integrated solar panels, which can easily be integrated with or attached to roofs, walls, vehicles, tents, over landfills, etc in urban environments and close to the end consumers,” Lindström believes. “The only limit is production capacity. It would necessitate 435 of our DUO machines to manufacture solar panels to cover just 5% of California’s membrane roofs.”

Midsummer’s revenue was SEK115m in 2017 ($12,7m; €11,2m) and SEK165m ($18m; €16m) in the first nine months of 2018, with operating profits of SEK25m ($2.8m; €2.4m), and SEK30.7m ($3.4m; €3m), respectively. Midsummer’s annual report for 2018 will be presented on 22 March.

Tags: CIGS Thin-film PV

Visit: www.midsummer.se

Visit: www.sunflaresolar.com