IIT Kanpur has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bengaluru-based NexPV Energy Systems to design and develop India’s first Sun Simulator for Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) systems. The collaboration was facilitated by Invariance Automation, a member company of IIT Kanpur’s Research and Technology Park Foundation, also known as Technopark@iitk.

The facility will allow CPV modules to be tested and characterised at the end of production lines in India. Such testing capability is not currently available in the country, and is intended to support the transition of indigenous CPV technology from proof-of-concept systems to large-scale manufacturing.

The project is being led by Professor Ashish Garg and his team at IIT Kanpur’s Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering. The institute said the initiative aligns with its focus on clean-energy technologies that can move from laboratory research to industrial production, while strengthening partnerships between academia and industry.

CPV systems use optical lenses to concentrate sunlight on small, high-efficiency multi-junction cells. The cells contain several semiconductor layers that capture different parts of the solar spectrum and occupy about 0.1 per cent of the panel area, reducing cell requirements by more than 99 per cent compared with conventional solar panels.

NexPV, led by Chidananda Murthy R, has developed indigenous CPV technology, with its proof-of-concept systems operating in the field for around three years. The company said CPV systems require less than 1 per cent of the cell area used by conventional panels and can use about half the land. Unlike existing simulators designed for flat-plate panels, the planned facility will reproduce the direct, parallel sunlight, narrow acceptance angle and spectral balance required by CPV modules. Invariance Automation is expected to become the preferred manufacturing partner for taking the system from prototype to production.