royal dsm

Major materials science company, Royal DSM has sold its Resins & Functional Materials (RFM) businesses including the coatings activities of DSM Advanced Solar, known for its anti-reflective (AR) resin coatings for solar glass and on-field PV power plant upgrading, to rival Covestro AG for a cash sum of around €1.4 billion.

The ‘Retrofit AR’ coating, an offspring of DSM’s industry-leading anti-reflective (AR) coatings, gives older, uncoated solar modules an instant energy boost of up to 3%, according to lab and field tests. For power plants built before 2012, it is an especially attractive way to increase yield while keeping feed-in tariffs high and boosting internal rate of return (IRR), compared to panel replacement programs.

At the recently held 2019 PV ModuleTech conference, held in Malaysia, PV Tech talked with Frédéric Dross, VP Technology Americas with DSM after his presentation that highlighted PV module materials for performance and reliability.

Organised by Fraunhofer CSE in partnership with Royal DSM and Greentown Labs, the SunRISE TechBridge Challenge II had selected four early-stage companies from 56 applications to be given support in bringing their technology to market faster.