Swedish thin-film solar manufacturer Midsummer will ship up to 200MW worth of manufacturing equipment to a planned thin-film solar PV manufacturing facility in Colombia.
The shipment is part of a deal with Swedish defence, security and manufacturing giant Saab to set up a module production facility with between 100MW and 200MW of annual production capacity. The site will produce copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar modules using Midsummer’s DUO machines, each of which the company says has 5MW of production capacity.
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The factory will be a state-run venture for Colombia, with backing from the Swedish government. Saab’s involvement is part of its offset commitment to Colombia, following its agreement to sell Colombia 15 Gripen fighter jets.
The facility will aim to become a “production hub for the entire Latin American market”, Midsummer said, and a “more detailed” plan for the site will be released in “late 2025”. Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy has said the site is part of a plan to reduce its reliance on imported solar PV products.
Midsummer first received an order for 15MW of turnkey production equipment for the site back in May, though at the time it did not disclose the buyer or their location.
The company has supplied CIGS solar cell manufacturing equipment to other parts of the world. Last year, Midsummer and Saab signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to set up a 200MW thin-film cell production site in Thailand, in which it was planning to own a minority stake. This followed other plans for CIGS production sites in Italy and its native Sweden. Last year, the company said it planned to begin production at the Swedish facility in the municipality of Flen in 2026.
CIGS technology is a relatively marginal offering in the thin-film solar space, having been superseded by both crystalline silicon and cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology. One area of interest for the technology is its potential in tandem with perovskite cell layers, which can offer higher conversion efficiencies. Midsummer received a €2.8 million grant from the Italian Ministry of University and Research to develop CIGS-perovskite tandem technology.
