Demand for solar-powered glass made by County Durham's Romag is continuing to grow as the company begins expanding its production capacity.

The Consett-based business announced yesterday that it had seen "strong growth" in demand for its PowerGlaz products, which generate electricity from the sun and can be incorporated into windows or tiles.

It is beefing up capacity at its Consett factory to cope with the increased interest. Romag raised £2.6m in a share placing in June to help pay for a new £4m production line which it expects to be fully operational by next summer.

Sales of Powerglaz, developed with BP, more than doubled from £500,000 to £1.15m in the six months to the end of March, helping AIM-listed Romag to boost profits by 37% to £586,000 during the period.

The new production line will allow the company to treble its capacity for PowerGlaz production from four megawatts (MW) to 12 megawatts a year.

The new equipment will also be able to use a variety of photovoltaic (PV) or solar cell sizes to meet different customer demands. In tandem with the production expansion, Romag is also looking to import extra solar cells from an additional supplier.

The company currently sources all its cells from BP, but has now signed a letter of intent to also get cells supplied by Taiwanese company E-Ton Solar, which floated on the Taiwan Stock Market in March this year.

Romag anticipates it will initially get 4MW of cells from E-Ton Solar next year and says the Taiwanese company will be "a key supplier" in the expansion of PowerGlaz production.