Helvara Power Glass
helvara@trustval.com
Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Glass

Premium facade cladding that generates electricity.

Architectural power glass for the facade market in Switzerland and Europe. It costs about the same as premium cladding, then generates power for 25 years and more.

Performance & data
Independently tested Swiss & EU certification European take-back
Power-glass curtain wall in blue glazing
1.92
Largest single panel in class
160 W/m²
Facade power density, up to
−0.30 %/°C
Temperature coefficient
25 yr+
Engineered service life
Retrofit at Scale

Made for retrofitting large existing facades.

The best fit is not a new build. It is re-cladding the big blank facades of buildings that already stand: silos and grain elevators, warehouses and logistics halls, parking decks and industrial towers.

01

Months, not years

A retrofit re-clad skips the multi-year design and construction cycle of a new build, so a first real project is realistic in months.

02

Big, unshaded surfaces

Tall, standalone industrial buildings offer huge uninterrupted south and west faces, the conditions facade power glass actually needs and rarely finds in a city.

03

The owner decides

No long design phase and no aesthetic committee. It is a re-cladding and return-on-investment decision, made by the building owner, which shortens the sale.

04

Priced as re-cladding

Large industrial facades often need re-cladding anyway, for corrosion, insulation or appearance, so the generation is the return on spend the owner was making regardless.

The Proposition

Cladding that pays for itself.

Helvara Power Glass is a building-integrated photovoltaic glass. It replaces conventional cladding and generates electricity across the whole surface of a building.

For a facade you already intend to clad in stone, terracotta, fibre-cement or spandrel glass, Helvara Power Glass is cost-competitive as cladding before a single kilowatt-hour is counted.

A premium architectural surface that pays for itself. 25 years and more of on-site generation, on cladding you were going to install anyway.

It works where buildings actually expose glass: vertical, often shaded, often hot. The product is designed around that.

Performance

Made for how a facade actually works.

Helvara Power Glass is designed to produce more energy on the surfaces a European building actually offers, not to chase a laboratory efficiency figure.

01

Runs cooler, loses less

A temperature coefficient of roughly −0.30 %/°C, around a third less power lost per degree of heat than crystalline silicon. A measurable yield advantage on hot, unventilated facades.

02

Made for diffuse light

Stronger output in diffuse and low-angle light, overcast days, non-south orientations and winter sun, which is what a Central-European facade receives most of the year.

03

A uniform surface

The most homogeneous deep-black finish of any power-generating glass, no visible cell grid or busbars. The flat architectural surface specifiers ask for, at facade scale.

04

Priced as cladding

Competitive per square metre with premium stone and terracotta as a ventilated rainscreen. The electricity is the return on cost you were already committed to.

Specification

Technical summary.

Indicative figures for the facade product line. Certified per-SKU datasheets are issued with the technical dossier.

TechnologyThin-film PV glass
Largest single panel1.92 m²
Panel size classup to ~1500 × 2000 mm
Power density (facade)110–160 W/m²
ConstructionLaminated glass-glass
Temperature coefficient≈ −0.30 %/°C
Low-light behaviourStrong (diffuse / vertical)
FinishUniform deep black
Product standardsIEC 61215 / IEC 61730
Service life (design)25 years and more
Manufacturing

Built by the world's leading producer of large-format thin-film architectural power glass.

Helvara Power Glass is manufactured by CNBM, a Fortune Global 500 building-materials group and a world leader in thin-film photovoltaic glass, backed by decades of glass-technology engineering.

That scale is why Helvara Power Glass delivers the largest single-panel power glass in its category with the manufacturing consistency a facade programme demands, panel after panel, floor after floor.

500Fortune Global 500 building-materials group
1.92 m²Largest single-panel power glass in production
#1World leader in large-format thin-film architectural glass
References

Proven on European facades.

Selected thin-film power-glass facades delivered across Europe.

Helmholtz-Zentrum power-glass facade

Helmholtz-Zentrum

Berlin, Germany
2020Completed378 m²Facade area48.6 kWpPower
Sara Kulturhus power-glass facade

Sara Kulturhus

Skellefteå, Sweden
2021Completed319 m²Facade area39.5 kWpPower
City Archive power-glass facade

City Archive

Amsterdam, Netherlands
2019Completed320 m²Facade area36.8 kWpPower
DHL Parking House power-glass facade

DHL Parking House

Leipzig, Germany
2023Completed1,872 m²Facade area828 kWpPower
Certification & Assurance

Certified and supported for Switzerland and Europe.

A good product is only half the job. The other half is delivering it to the rules in Switzerland and Europe, with the assurances specifiers expect.

Independently tested

Evaluated against Europe's leading building-integrated PV research and test programme, so datasheet figures are figures you can specify with.

Swiss & European certification

Documented to the Swiss technical-acceptance framework (SIA) and the relevant IEC and construction-product standards for the European market.

European take-back

A committed end-of-life take-back and recycling programme in Europe, the responsible-sourcing assurance an ESG-conscious client expects, ready before they ask.

Applications

Where it fits.

Ventilated glass facade
Ventilated rainscreen
Facade cladding, retrofit & new build
Power-glass curtain wall facade
Curtain wall
Structural glazing & spandrel
Power-glass balustrade
Balustrade & parapet
Balcony & railing systems
Complete Solution

A facade that is also a complete energy asset.

The glass generates the power. We deliver the rest of the system.

Power storage

Battery storage sized to the facade.

Power management

An energy-management layer.

Carbon-credit management

Generation turned into carbon credits.

Materials & Compliance

Fully documented.

Technology, regulatory status and end-of-life, set out here and in the technical dossier.

The technology +
Helvara Power Glass is a thin-film photovoltaic glass built on a cadmium-telluride (CdTe) semiconductor layer, the thin-film family with the longest field track record in utility-scale solar. Its bandgap suits real, partly-diffuse daylight rather than laboratory sunlight, which is why it holds output on vertical and low-light facades. The active layer is encapsulated within laminated safety glass; no metal is exposed.
Regulatory status +
Thin-film CdTe photovoltaic modules are explicitly exempt under EU RoHS (Directive 2011/65/EU), a carve-out in continuous force since 2011, and are legal to place on the market today. Helvara Power Glass is documented to IEC 61215 and IEC 61730 and to the construction-product standards for its building application, with Swiss technical acceptance handled market-specifically.
End of life & take-back +
Helvara Power Glass is covered by a European take-back and recycling commitment. The cadmium-telluride compound is bound within the laminated glass and recovered through the programme at end of life, the closed-loop position set as best practice by the leading thin-film producers.
Supply-chain integrity +
Helvara Power Glass uses no polysilicon. Its semiconductor is a thin-film compound, not a silicon wafer, so it sits outside the polysilicon supply chain that draws forced-labour scrutiny, a cleaner supply-chain position than conventional crystalline-silicon glass.

Request the technical dossier.

Full specification, certification status, reference detail and per-project pricing.

Talk to the team