/saur-energy/media/agency_attachments/2025/06/20/2025-06-20t080222223z-saur-energy-logo-prasanna-singh-1-2025-06-20-13-32-22.png){kind=logo}
Follow Us
/saur-energy/media/post_attachments/2024/12/silisonwafer.jpg)
Germany based solar wafer manufacturer NexWafe has entered into an agreement with Solar cell maker Talon PV for a wafer supply agreement in the US. NexWafe, which counts India's Reliance Industries and Saudi oil Major Aramco among its key investors, promises a leaner, more efficient process to make solar wafers that is competitive with options in the global market from China.
Under the agreement with Talon, NexWafe will supply nearly 7GW of advanced wafers to support Talon PV’s 4.8GW tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cell manufacturing plant in Baytown, Texas. NexWafe will supplky wafers made at its pilot-scale operation in Bitterfeld, Germany with the possibility of expanding production to the US. The Bitterfeld plant, started as a pilot plant with a capacity of 50 MW, is expected to scale up fully by 2027 as Nexwafe raises funds through its ongoing D round.
NexWafe last year had dropped plans for manufacturing in the US with its own fab. Subsequent claw backs from the Trump Administration of IRA benefits wouln't have helped reconsider in any case.
NexWafe’s proprietary direct gas-to-wafer manufacturing method, known as EpiNex is probably a contender to be used at Reliance's Jamnagar gigafactory as well, as the firm progresses on its bakward integration plans for solar manufacturing. While current Epinex 110 wafers promise 24% efficiency, the next level, Epinex Advanced materials are targeting over 27% effiiciency by 2027, and with Perovskite -based tanbdem cells, even 30% or higher by 2030.
In January this year, Nexwafe received a €26 million equity award letter under the EIC STEP Scale Up program, as part of the final award decisions for the 2025 calendar year. The award letter was granted in November 2025.
The EIC STEP Scale Up program, launched by the European Commission in November 2024, is designed to support European companies developing technologies critical to Europe’s strategic autonomy, including clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and industrial resilience. The program represented a total investment capacity of €300 million for 2025. NexWafe has also received the STEP Seal (Strategic Technologies for Europe), formally recognizing the company’s strategic importance for Europe.
While the Talon partnership remains subject to the execution of definitive long-term supply documentation and the completion of customary technical qualification and investment conditions, NexWafe will be happy with the progress it has made , and certainly appears capable of delivering on the promise it made to offer a competitive European option to Chinese made wafers.