Ubiquitous Energy solar shutter window installed at Michigan State University.
Permitted to use universal energy
A materials science startup, Popular energy, is raising tens of millions of dollars to turn windows into solar harvesting surfaces. The California startup announced on Tuesday that it has closed a $30 million funding round, including an investment from the consumer window and door manufacturing giant. Andersen Corporation, bringing its total funding to $70 million.
Popular as coatings for windows use semiconductor materials to convert sunlight into electricity. The coating is only nanometers thick and the microscopic wires connect the solar window to the electrical systems where the energy is used.
CEO Susan Stone told CNBC that the pre-revenue company will use its most recent funding to do production research and development work. Ubiquitous is aiming for full-scale production as early as 2024, said Stone.
When they get there, “we’ll be able to do floor-to-ceiling glass,” Stone said. “We can turn skyscrapers into vertical solar farms.”
Ubiquitous is also targeting the housing market, which makes Anderson’s investment particularly strategic. Anderson is a private company and does not disclose its finances, but has told CNBC it has revenue in excess of $3 billion by 2021.
Anderson was particularly impressed with Ubiquitous because its solar film was so clear and unobtrusive into the window frames.
Prabhakar (KP) Karri writes: “Although there are competing solar window technologies under development, most have a trade-off in terms of transparency, color, obstructing the viewing area. , haze or energy efficiency, making it difficult for consumers to accept them as alternatives to standard windows,” wrote Prabhakar (KP) Karri and Karl Halling, who led the company’s investment in a in response to a question from CNBC.
Stone knows that this transparency is the key to success.
“They have to look indistinguishable from traditional windows, or we won’t see mass rollout,” says Stone. “Aesthetics is our guiding light.”
30% more expensive than ordinary window glass
The $30 million raised is the bridge to getting the company ready for production after more than a decade of work. Ubiquitous was founded in 2011, and its technology was created from the work of scientists and engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State University.
Since then, a growing number of investors and consumers have come to believe that tackling climate change is an urgent priority. Popularity and its investors are relying on this sense of urgency to drive demand for its product despite its higher cost – solar power window panels are predicted to cost about 30 percent more. % of conventional glass fitted to the windows as production is expanded, Stone told CNBC.
Solar glass is also less efficient than traditional solar panels, operating at full capacity 22% efficiency – measurement of the amount of sunlight that hits the surface of a solar panel and is converted into electricity.
Ubiquitous has a window in the research and development pipeline that will provide about 10 percent efficiency, or “about half that of conventional solar,” but its theoretical maximum is about 2, says Stone. /3 potential efficiency of conventional solar panels.
Part of that lower efficiency is just because the windows are vertical, while the solar panels are horizontal, allowing them to let in more direct sunlight.
“But we’re allowing a surface that hasn’t yet generated energy to generate electricity,” says Stone. “Glass is always in a passive state, and we’re making it active here.”
Popular Energy windows installed at Boulder Commons in Colorado.
Photo courtesy of Ubiquitous Energy
By 2050, Ubiquitous hopes to have one billion square feet of window glass installed globally.
It’s an ambitious goal and Stone is clear about the challenges ahead.
“The things that keep me up at night are things like ‘Can we meet our production schedule?’ “Will we find that exact right production position that allows us to break into our timeframe when we want to? Will the road to production go as smoothly as we thought it would?”
Although Stone is currently focusing on architectural glazing, that is only step one in its long-term vision.
“We have great applications in all kinds of industries, like consumer electronics, automotive and even agriculture,” says Stone. “So we don’t stop at the window.”
