Daily Archives: July 25, 2020

The UKs capability to manufacture vaccines has received a substantial boost today (Thursday 23 July), as the government announces an additional 100 million to ensure that any successful COVID-19 vaccine can be produced at scale in the UK.

The investment will fund a state-of-the-art Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Manufacturing Innovation Centre to accelerate the mass production of a successful COVID-19 vaccine in the UK. Due to open in December 2021, the Centre will have the capacity to produce millions of doses each month, ensuring the UK has the capabilities to manufacture vaccines and advanced medicines, including for emerging diseases, far into the future.

Located in Braintree, Essex, the government initiative will upgrade an existing facility to create a fully-licensed manufacturing centre. Doing so will increase the UKs ability to respond to diseases like coronavirus and to prepare for potential future pandemics while creating new, high-skilled jobs to fuel the UKs economic recovery.

The new centre will complement the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC), which is currently under construction in Oxfordshire thanks to a 93 million investment from the government. Once complete next year, the facility will have the capacity to produce enough vaccine doses to serve the entire UK population at scale.

While the centre is under construction, the government has invested an additional 38 million to establish a rapid deployment facility, opening later this summer, that will support efforts to ensure a successful vaccine is widely available to the public as soon as possible.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said:

We are taking all necessary steps to ensure we can vaccinate the public as soon as a successful COVID-19 vaccine becomes available.

This new Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Manufacturing Innovation Centre, alongside crucial investment in skills, will support our efforts to rapidly produce millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine while ensuring the UK can respond quickly to potential future pandemics.

To support these enhanced vaccine manufacturing capabilities, the government will invest an additional 4.7 million for the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult to ensure that the UK has the best skills and expertise through the development of virtual and physical national Centres for Advanced Therapies Training and Skills, in partnership with industry.

The facilities and online training platform will provide industry-standard skills and experience in advanced gene therapy and vaccine manufacturing, including sterile techniques for Good Manufacturing Practice which is the minimum standard that a medicines manufacturer must meet in their production processes.

Employment in the cell and gene therapy sector is predicted to reach over 6,000 jobs by 2024, with over 3,000 in manufacturing and bioprocessing.

Matthew Durdy, CEO, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult commented:

This commitment from government through the Vaccines Taskforce will enable continued growth and productivity in the cell and gene therapy sector, as well as providing vital resource for vaccine manufacturing and economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are delighted to be able to deploy the specialist capabilities of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in such an important initiative. Accelerating the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, increasing skills and employment, and facilitating growth of the advanced medicines industry will make a valuable contribution to the recovery of the economy.

Kate Bingham, Chair of the Vaccines Taskforce said:

Todays announcement is another important milestone for us. The work of the Vaccines Taskforce is focused on protecting the UK against COVID-19 through vaccination as quickly as possible.

In order to vaccinate our high-risk populations at the earliest opportunity, the government has agreed to proactively manufacture vaccines now, so we have millions of doses of vaccine ready if they are shown to be safe and effective. The acquisition of this state-of-the-art manufacturing centre will not only help us with this, but also ensures we are well-placed as a country to be able to cope with any pandemics or health crises in the future.

As well as addressing the immediate need to produce a COVID-19 vaccine, the new Cell and Gene Therapy Centre, developed with Innovate UK and the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, will be at the forefront of the growing UK cell and gene therapy industry. Scientists and researchers based in the centre will accelerate the time taken for new treatments to be delivered to patients by developing cutting-edge therapies to treat life changing diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

The UK is at the forefront of international efforts to research and develop a COVID-19 vaccine and has provided 131 million funding to University of Oxford and Imperial College London to accelerate their work on 2 vaccine candidates.

This follows news on Monday (20 July) that the government secured early access to 90 million vaccine doses from the BioNTech/Pfizer alliance and Valneva as part of its strategy to build a portfolio of promising new vaccines to protect the UK from COVID-19. In addition, treatments containing COVID-19-neutralising antibodies have been secured from AstraZeneca to protect those who cannot receive vaccines.

The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult was established as an independent centre of excellence to advance the growth of the UK cell and gene therapy industry, by bridging the gap between scientific research and full-scale commercialisation.

With more than 230 employees focusing on cell and gene therapy technologies, it works with partners in academia and industry to ensure these life-changing therapies can be developed for use in health services throughout the world. It offers leading-edge capability, technology and innovation to enable companies to take products into clinical trials and provide clinical, process development, manufacturing, regulatory, health economics and market access expertise. Its aim is to make the UK the most compelling and logical choice for UK and international partners to develop and commercialise these advanced therapies.

The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult works with Innovate UK. For more information please visit the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult or Innovate UK.

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Over 100 million cash boost to manufacture millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine - GOV.UK

"From day one, any discussion of herd immunity or survival of the fittest or, you know, 'Say farewell to the elderly,' are the things that just did not sound right for us," Jordan's Prime Minister Omar Razzaz tells NPR. "So we went for a very different model in Jordan, based on social solidarity."

Jane Arraf/NPR

Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz sits in the front room of his family home in a middle-class Amman neighborhood of traditional white stone houses with small gardens and low walls. Unusually, in a region where senior officials typically live in gated compounds far from public view, the residential street has been kept open to traffic to minimize disruption to Razzazsneighbors.

Razzaz, an MIT and Harvard-educated economist, was appointed by Jordans King Abdullah II to head a new government two years ago, following anti-government protests that were sparked by IMF-mandated tax increases seen as bypassing the rich. Although hed served previously as education minister, Razzaz was seen as a relativeoutsider.

The small, resource-poor kingdom is surrounded by dangers from neighboring countries: a war in Syria, conflict between the U.S. and Iran in Iraq, and Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank it occupies something Jordan says poses a danger to the entireregion.

But those issues have taken a back seat to controlling the coronavirus a feat Jordan has accomplished with an early and severe lockdown. The country of roughly 10 million has registered 1,131 coronavirus cases, with 11deaths.

Razzaz sees vulnerable groups in other countries paying a disproportionate price for policies that dont prioritize them, and says Jordans approach from the start was to protect the mostvulnerable.

From day one, any discussion of herd immunity or survival of the fittest or, you know, Say farewell to the elderly, are the things that just did not sound right for us, Razzaz tells NPR. So we went for a very different model in Jordan, based on social solidarity, in fact, helping the weakest. We did everything we can to make sure our children, our elderly, our refugees you know, the haves and the have-nots areprotected.

In mid-March, Jordan was one of the first countries in the region to shut its airports and borders for all but essential goods. Arriving passengers were sent into compulsory quarantine. All but emergency workers and security forces were confined to their homes, with even grocery stores shut and the army distributing bread to poorneighborhoods.

The government cut public sector salaries and allowed businesses to reduce workers wages, but banned them from laying offemployees.

Razzaz says in the last four months, almost half of Jordans population received some form of governmentassistance.

This week, the country announced it would reopen its airport to flights from a dozen countries where coronavirus rates are also low. With no cases of local transmission on most days, Jordan has stopped enforcing mask wearing and reopened restaurants and shoppingmalls.

Razzaz says industry production is now back to pre-coronavirus standards, and Jordan is exporting pharmaceuticals and food to othercountries.

Jordan took a chance with the lockdown, he says, but felt it had little choice, given the prospect of its health care system being overwhelmed with COVID-19cases.

When we took the steps that we took, we did that not because we were certain about the outcomes. So theres always hindsight But were very, very glad we did what we did. And a lot of countries that waited longer, including the U.S., are having a harder time containing the coronavirus, hesays.

Razzaz and health officials note Jordan remains on guard for a possible resurgence of the virus as its airportreopens.

The longer-term challenge is an already fragile economy in which unemployment is rising sharply. Tens of thousands of Jordanians have lost their jobs in the Arab Gulf states, as those economies decline due to the pandemic and a plunge in oilprices.

The official unemployment rate for the first quarter of the year had already topped 19%. Some economists expect the real rate could reach 30% by the end of the year, with many of the unemployed youngpeople.

Razzaz says, though, he is not worried by the prospect of renewed demonstrations that could be sparked by the economiccrisis.

While some countries worry a lot about social unrest, we see it as people expressing views about that hardship, he says. Were going to be proactive with employment and job creation. And if you get frustrated and want to shout, we have a constitution and set of laws and institutions that allow that to happen in democraticways.

The other wild card facing the kingdom is Israels annexation threat. Jordan, along with Egypt, is one of only two Arab countries in the region to have signed a peace treaty with Israel. Jordans king says he might suspend the 26-year-old treaty if Israel takes unilateral steps to claim sovereignty over parts of the WestBank.

Israel cites Jewish ties and a strategic need for it, but most of the international community opposes such a move, which could doom Palestinian hopes for an independentstate.

Jordan, where a majority of citizens are of Palestinian origin, would be the country most affected by Israels move, and instability could ripple across theregion.

Razzaz says Jordan has not changed its insistence on the need for an independent Palestinian state alongsideIsrael.

If you dont provide a just solution for the Palestinian people and sovereignty, you are pushing them and the region towards despair and extremism. So will there be conflict under such conditions? Yes, there will be, definitely, he says. I think what His Majesty and Jordan have been doing is sounding the alarm bells.

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Jordan's Prime Minister Says His Country Contained COVID-19 By 'Helping The Weakest' - OPB News

From pv magazine 07/2020

Solar PV is scaling, fast. On track to terawatt scale Fraunhofer ISE estimates around 12 TW will be installed by 2030, while PV consultancy Amrock puts the 2050 figure at 70 TW to 80 TW it is a disruptive, low-cost, clean energy source.

Growth poses lucrative opportunities, particularly for manufacturers; yet, a dark cloud lingers. As Pierre Verlinden, Amrock MD, said during pvmagazines recent Virtual Roundtable (see p. 58), at 1 TW, the industry accounts for 94% of todays silver market, 35% of copper, and 32% of MG silicon. Even at todays GW level, waste is worrisome, toxic materials integral, and raw materials finite.

The World Economic Forums 2020 Risk Report confirms such issues are not confined to the few, but rather represent disruption for the many.

In response, multilateral global partnerships are forming to investigate how circular manufacturing models can play a revolutionary role. The goal is not just avoiding environmental destruction; equally, innovative business models, new revenue streams, resiliency and long-term economic stability are targeted.

Global thinktank SustainAbility wrote in its 2020 annual trends report: From food and fashion to electronics and the built environment, circular thinking keeping resources in use for as long as possible to extract the maximum value will continue to gain momentum in 2020.

In Europe, the unveiling of the European Green Deal and associated Circular Economy Action Plan this March has seen heightened sustainability activity. For example, Sitra, Technology Industries of Finland and Accenture released a playbook, Circular business models for the manufacturing industry, in May. In it Sitra states: Circular economy offers companies the opportunity to turn inefficiencies in linear value chains into business value. These inefficiencies look beyond production waste, focusing on underutilised capacities, premature product lives, unsustainable materials, wasted end-of-life value and unexploited customer engagements.

Reviewing a number of globally established businesses, the playbook identifies proven circular business results. These include Wrtsil achieving a 45% reduction in production development expenses and a 50% reduction in assembly time using modular engine architecture, and Caterpillar reaping 50% higher gross profits from selling remanufactured products at a 20% discount. Ford has also cut costs by around 20% by swapping aluminum for steel, while Michelin is selling tires-as-a-service, with a revenue potential of 3 billion in 10 years.

Overall, five working circular manufacturing business models are identified to achieve such results (see chart to the left). Work on circular projects in the PV and storage sectors is also underway, including three Horizon 2020 European Commission funded projects Circusol, Cabriss and Super PV and Fraunhofer ISEs Green Manufacturing Consortium. As discussed below, similarities between the industries and business models mentioned above can be drawn, and knowledge transferred.

With 8.25 million in funding, Circusol or Circular Business Models for the Solar Power Industry aims to formalize reuse, repair and refurbishment value chains for PV and storage. It also demonstrates the potential of Product Service System (PSS) business models over a four-year period.

Its report calculates there will be 8 million tons of PV waste, 13 GW of EU solar power that second-life PV could serve, and 25 GWh of second-life batteries by 2030. These resources could reap benefits if changes are made, like user not owner business models, economic stimulus and facilitation packages, rather than regulation, and transition from a few global, to many regional players. Key are reuse, repair, remanufacturing, repurposing and recycling.

To realize a vision, barriers must be understood. Circusol has identified 48 of these in R&D, design, technology, grid, collaboration, recycling, regulatory and market. These could be addressed via short- and long-term actions, as outlined in the table to the right.

In addition to value chains, Circusol investigates how circular PSSs could support change. Specifically, it wants to catalyze markets for second-life PV modules (see pp. 68-69), and the remanufacturing of disused EV batteries for stationary PV systems (watch out for pvmagazine 08/2020). It sees further potential in novel product technologies with lower environmental footprints, like mounting structures comprising renewable materials.

The intended role of a service-based business model approach is to enable coordinated product management (collection, sorting, refurbishment, testing, certification) and mitigate user concerns about the reliability, performance and lifetime of second-life PV products, writes Nancy Bocken and Lars Strupeit of Delft University of Technology, in a 2019 paper titled Towards a Circular Photovoltaic Economy: The Role of Service-based Business Models.

For example, opportunities exist in sharing excess electricity with other users through microgrids, aggregation services, and trading platforms, and enabling sharing of electric storage capacity at the community level. Delivery of these actions would require the coordination of responsibilities across several partners of the value chain, a role that a solar service firm potentially can adopt, they say.

Circusol divides cPSS into three categories: product, use, and result oriented. The first, pPSS involves selling products combined with services in the use phase, such as a product and after-sales repair. With uPSS models, the use of, or access to, products is central, like renting/leasing products; while the rPSS model focuses on services, not products, which could be a fee for service.

A benefit of service-based business models is the opportunity to gather valuable data on performance and service needs on a large number of systems, thereby enabling incremental optimization of system design and operation, say Bocken and Strupeit. They also allow for easier repair, reuse and recycling, among other benefits. See pvmagazine 06/2020 and listen to our Virtual Roundtable Sustainability Session to learn more about Circusol, and partners imec and PV Cycle.

Complementing Circusol is the Super-PV project, which aims to reduce PV module LCOE by 26% to 37% via innovation in electronics, and module and solar system design. With a budget of 11.6 million, it is focusing on areas like Module Level Power Electronics (MLPE) developments ensuring higher power output, performance monitoring and data collection on the string level, and nano-coatings for modules, which are anti-soiling, easy-to-clean and anti-reflective. These innovations are already showing promising results after the first tests. It is the second year of the Super PV project out of a total of four years, Tadas Radaviius, project manager at Lithuanian-based Solitek told pvmagazine. Work will now focus on demonstration of these innovations in desert, tropical, and cold climates.

The Lithuanian module maker is also looking into circular business models for second-life panels and refurbished batteries, while investigating alternative non-toxic materials like lead (pvmagazine 09/2020 will cover circular materials), new panel designs, and integrating radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. This latter issue ties into Circusols short-term action 1, and long-term action 3, and the creation of a central digital repository of information.

As Radaviius explains, RFID tags could contain information useful for installers and recycling companies, like technical parameters and material composition. Another option RFID unlocks is the creation of an online database documenting information on each panel or PV system, which could be accessible to a number of stakeholders like manufacturers, installers, recycling companies, and researchers.

A third Horizon 2020-funded project is Cabriss, or the implementation of a circular economy based on recycled, reused and recovered indium, silicon and silver materials for PV and other applications. The aim of the group, which includes 16 European companies and research institutes, and has access to 9.26 million in funding, is to develop a circular economy based on PV waste manufacturing and end-of-life modules. It is focusing on technologies to recover secondary materials from modules and production waste; and to manufacture modules from these.

We managed to develop all technologies required to separate, purify and recycle PV waste manufacturing and end-of-life modules, Luc Federzoni of France-based research institute CEA and David Pelletier, project manager at French solar energy institute CEA-INES, told pvmagazine. This involves opening the modules via non-thermal processes to recover over 95% of materials like silicon, aluminum, silver and indium, and the EVA. However, they say it is currently difficult to find profitable business models while recycling volumes are still small.

Several innovative, resource-saving production technologies for wafers and cells are concurrently being investigated. These mainly involve Si-kerf waste from PV manufacturing to produce low-cost silicon substrates, including ingots made from recycled Si via a hot-pressing process, say Federzoni and Pelletier. PV cells and modules with an efficiency of 18.5% and containing 100%-recycled silicon have reportedly been produced. This is a promising technology and the process is said to be ready for industrialization.

New cell technology using epitaxial deposition of silicon directly from silane, which avoids energy intensive processes and eliminates kerf loss, is another area of development. Further R&D is still needed but feasibility has been demonstrated on small solar cells, they say.

Protocols measuring the quality of recycled material and its suitability for making new solar cells tie into this work, although a standard for remanufacturing cells with recycled materials is said to be lacking. What we precisely managed to industrialize was the re-use of the materials for other sectorial applications. This is the case for Si and In.

This latter issue touches on industrial symbiosis where waste or byproducts of one industrial process become raw materials for another key to a circular economy. In solar, benefits could be reaped by collaboration with TV manufacturers, for example. The full interview with Federzoni and Pelletier is available at pv-magazine.com.

Stating that now is the time to reinvest in the European manufacturing industry and take advantage of the TW-scale opportunities ahead, Germanys Fraunhofer ISE established the Green Manufacturing Consortium in 2019. It is a German publicly funded project, comprising 20 industrial partners, four institutes and two industry associations, including First Solar, Meyer Burger, Total, Wacker, VDMA, Oxford PV and Von Ardenne.

The goal is to develop an economic-ecological evaluation methodology for a sustainable future factory 10 GW in size and easily scalable beyond that for the production of innovative PV modules. Via a comprehensive energy and material flow model of scaled and vertically integrated PV fabs we will simulate changes in production capacity, factory layout, supply systems, production facilities and processes as well as recycling of materials through recycling processes and other value-added stages, explained Jochen Rentsch, head of Department Production Technology Division Photovoltaics.

In a recent report, Fraunhofer calculated that 1.9 billion investment would be required for such a 10 GW factory, covering an area of 500,000m2 and creating up to 7,500 jobs. Director Andreas Bett said reestablishing a European PV manufacturing market represents a big opportunity to ensure energy security by reducing dependency on imports, lowering costs and addressing sustainability. Why transport large and heavy PV modules the long distance from Asia and cause CO2 emissions and added cost? For example, module costs of 0.20/W can be soon realized, and transport costs from China to Europe can be up to 0.025/W, he wrote. As the chart here shows, the emissions of manufacturing modules in Germany are also much lower than in China, because of the stricter environmental controls in place.

Fraunhofer gives a further nod to Europes R&D centers, which are working on sustainable solar technologies like those mentioned in Cabriss, including kerfless wafers and high efficiency solar cells using tandem structures.

Responding to fears that sustainability could mean more expense, the reports authors say reducing and reusing materials, combined with higher efficiencies, and longer module lifetimes means end products should not be more expensive.

Strengthening this argument, the authors point to significant decreases in Capex costs and the replacement of traditional Al-BSF cells by PERC cells in industrial production. The already significant cost reduction and the prospect of even further reducing the cost in PV production leads to the conclusion that local production can bring cost advantages. This is a new development.

The year is 2050. Solar PV has reached terawatt-scale, with legislation on air pollution and waste. Caps on carbon have been filed away, digital dust stacked high upon their long-forgotten folders. Breaking news flashes detailing toxic spills and unjust labor conditions are inconceivable to todays generation. Landfills have been eradicated; just as in nature, the concept of waste does not exist.

Every particle entering and leaving factories is beneficial to businesses, their employees and the environment, all of which are thriving. Everything fits into a continual technological or biological loop maximum value extracted to the benefit of all societal and environmental stakeholders. This is a bold vision, yet with cooperation and innovation, it is achievable. The groundwork is now already being laid.

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The weekend read: Making solar sizzle - pv magazine International