Coloured PV modules with Fraunhofer ISE patent achieve market maturity

Coloured building-integrated photovoltaic (PV) modules that replace roof or façade elements can be an attractive alternative to the traditional blue-black solar PV installations. Until recently, coloured modules came with considerable efficiency losses. Now, there is a solution available in the PV market: coloured PV modules that deliver at least 90 percent of the electricity yield of an ordinary module.

Megasol Energie AG, a module producer from Switzerland, holds a license for the MorphoColor® technology which was developed and patented by Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE.

“Transferring Fraunhofer ISE’s developments to industrial applications is always our overriding goal,” said Dr. Andreas Bett, institute director at Fraunhofer ISE. “That’s why we are so pleased to have achieved this together with Megasol Energie. Now the construction industry will have access to highly efficient, coloured PV systems. The MorphoColor® technology also opens up new possibilities for buildings with historical protection status.”

“A solar module with ‘Solarcolor Morpho’ colours achieves 94 percent of the efficiency value of a conventional black module. That’s fantastic,” said Michael Reist, Head of Public Relations at Megasol Energie AG.

“The particular colour structure was inspired by the Morpho butterfly, whose intense blue wings create an angularly stable colour impression over a wide range,” said Dr. Thomas Kroyer, co-inventor and developer of the MorphoColor® technology at Fraunhofer ISE. “With this technology, we can create a multitude of colours while allowing most of the sunlight to pass through the PV module glass. The underlying solar cells are hardly visible at all.”

The MorphoColor® layer consists of a photonic structure in which an interference layer is combined with a geometrically structured substrate in such a way that a narrow-band reflection peak results, yielding maximum results. It reflects a small part of the colour spectrum and allows the rest of the sunlight to pass through virtually unhindered. The coloured coating therefore only reduces efficiency by 10 percent relative or less, compared to an uncoated module. MorphoColor® coated panes can also be used for tinted building-integrated solar thermal collectors or also photovoltaic-themal (PVT) collectors.