- Entered into a licensing agreement to establish
Post# of 22454
IMO, that's the biggest immediate takeaway in the 10k, and probably why that is listed first. Its news from QMC but has been announced by AMTRON and Assam. That's why I believe 'asia' means 'India". At this point, until an announcement, QMC cannot reveal who the agreement is with without violating NDA. China deal seems dormant.
Licensing Agreements often come with licensing fees and/or operating budget.
China deal I believe included a automated continuous flow process system, so I would think an India deal of this magnitude would also include one. It makes sense to have one close to the clients to save time, transport and tariffs, while also maintaining control or supervision of production.
Solar photovoltaics will be a part of the India deal. I would guess that QMC/Solterra would make this part of the license only to apply to India, and not necessarily for export. First, market in India is huge. Second, QDSC can be built cheaper and specific for a local, regional market by siteing production there. Third, expansion can be quicker with multiple local investors 'buying the franchise' there. Each solar factory will have same footprint and equipment, limiting expansion to how quickly R2R equipment can be built. Its a few years away, perhaps with planning the equipment makers can start building equipment fabs to Solterra specs? Yes, QDSC still has to be proven by a pilot solar factory and this could take a few years, but once up, can be easily reproduced. (Solterra QDSC are 'inorganic' but for many years 'organic' R2R solar cells have been studied - Google "organic solar cells" to get an idea of the parallel research done with those materials.) For years, organics gave better results than inorganic materials and was thought to have better potential. Squires has believed since at least 2007 that inorganic QD is the way to go. Recent research seems to prove him right with Perovskite achieving 22% efficiency.