The new PV venture of Franco Traverso, MegaCell Srl, has been officially announced at Solarexpo yesterday. Having founded Helios Technology Spa in 1981 (solded in 2008), Franco Traverso is considered as a pioneer in photovoltaics. In 2007 he founded Silfab Spa and consecutively Silfab Ontario Inc., both active in the field of production of energy and modules respectively.

The Italian entrepreneur is now ready to exploit several technological innovations in which he is investing efforts and resources since a while, together with the team of the German research institute ISC Konstanz, in order to put into industrial production, the brand new bifacial solar cell called "BiSoN", based on monocrystalline N-type silicon featuring a high efficiency (already today over 20%) at a low production cost.

The revolutionary BiSoN solar cell is showing its complete potential when integrated into a bifacial module: with only 60 cells, this module can feature an "equivalent power" of 350 W (= same yearly energy as a 350W monofacial module). This results in an energy yield that is 30% higher compared to a standard 60 cells module (250 - 265W) installed with fixed tilt and 50% higher when the bifacial BiSoN module is mounted in a system with tracker.

"In addition to being a manufacturing company", Traverso says, "MegaCell is targeting to be a center of excellence capable of putting together the best expertise and the most specialized know-how. Giving to the Grid Parity new opportunities that are more and more competitive is one of my "obsessions". Thanks to BiSoN, the cost per kWh will be reduced significantly which in turn increases the competitive advantage of photovoltaics as an energy source alternative to fossile fuels."

The manufacturing site at Carmignano di Brenta (PD) will be completely dedicated to the production of BiSoN cells, reaching a capacity of 80 MW/year in 2015 employing 75 people.

Those cells will be partly destined for module producers that want to take profit of the opportunities offered by highly efficient bifacial photovoltaics at low cost and partly to companies that will produce bifacial modules on behalf of MegaCell.

The plan consists in starting the implementation of the BISoN technology from next month, while the production line will be ready for processing within around 5 months and up and running by end of this year.