Back to search

ENERGIX-Stort program energi

SUCCEED - Sustainable and cost-efficient manufacturing of new solar technology in Norway

Alternative title: SUCCEED - Bærekraftig og kostnadseffektiv produksjon av ny solteknologi i Norge

Awarded: NOK 10.6 mill.

The aim of SUCCEED is to make high-volume production of our cutting-edge solar energy technology more cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable. This will be reached by developing a real-time Digital Twin of the production line that we integrate into the control system to obtain the required production precision and secure product quality. The introduction of high-performance polymers (HPP) for our technology aims to realize the great cost-reduction potential, overcome existing barriers and open for new applications and markets for solar heat production. SUCCEED presents a pioneering effort to realize the processing of HPPs to structured sheets by extrusion and lift it to an industrial process. Presently leading structured sheet providers lack suitable production lines to process our technology cost-efficiently and in the required quality. Extrusion of HPPs requires sophisticated control of the process conditions. The focus of our work will be to understand, model and verify the critical parameters, and develop control and forecasting based on a digital twin of the production process. SUCCEED will solve this challenge in a joint effort with key expertise from research and industry: IFE-Institute of Energy Technology, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Inaventa Solar, the production line manufacturer and the material supplier of high-performance polymers. The outcome of this project will represent a game-changer for solar heat production and thus pushing the Green Transition with Norwegian solar technology. In autumn 2021, Inaventa Solar and Omipa have completed all major installations of the pilot extrusion line for high performance polymers at the new production site at Jevnaker. Successful first production trials were conducted with support from Solvay. This milestone was covered by online media and technical news. In the start-up phase of SUCCEED, the critical production steps and processing parameters for the extrusion of HPP were identified and will needed for developing the mathematical models (IFE) as a central part of the digital twin. To get access, handle and use the current process data digitally, we coordinated a progress plan with input from our IT team, process operators, production line manufacturer and the research team.

The aim of SUCCEED is to make high-volume production of our cutting-edge solar energy technology more cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable. This will be reached by developing a real-time Digital Twin of the production line that we integrate into the control system to obtain the required production precision and secure product quality. The introduction of high-performance polymers (HPP) for our technology aims to realize the great cost-reduction potential, overcome existing barriers and open for new applications and markets for solar heat production. SUCCEED presents a pioneering effort to realize the processing of HPPs to structured sheets by extrusion and lift it to an industrial process. Presently leading structured sheet providers lack suitable production lines to process our technology cost-efficiently and in the required quality. Extrusion of HPPs requires sophisticated control of the process conditions: Even small deviations in temperature or pressure lead to production issues such as die slag deposition, unfinished crystallization and high rejection rate. The focus of our work will be to understand, model and verify the critical parameters, and develop control and forecasting based on the digital twin of the production process. SUCCEED will solve this challenge in a joint effort with key expertise from research and industry: Expertise in modeling of industrial processes and Digital twin design (IFE-Institute of Energy Technology), life cycle and -cost assessment (Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems) together with central industry partners along the value chain: the solar energy technology owner (Inaventa Solar), the production line manufacturer (Omipa) and the material supplier of high-performance polymers (Solvay). Dissemination supported by the Norwegian Solar Energy Cluster. The outcome of this project will represent a game-changer for solar heat production and thus pushing the Green Transition with Norwegian solar technology.

Funding scheme:

ENERGIX-Stort program energi