The windows at Michigan State University were installed with solar energy.
A start-up called Ubiquitous Energy is raising tens of millions of dollars to turn windows into surfaces that capture solar energy. The California start-up announced on Tuesday it closed a $30 million funding round, including an investment from consumer window and door manufacturing giant Andersen Corporation.
A coating that converts sunlight into electricity is made by Ubiquitous. The solar window is covered with a thin coating and wires that connect it to electrical systems.
Susan Stone told CNBC that the company will use the most recent funding to do manufacturing research and development. Stone said that Ubiquitous wants to be producing at scale by early 2024.
Stone said they will be able to make floor to ceiling glass when they get there. We can turn skyscrapers into solar farms.
The Anderson investment is particularly strategic because it is targeting the home residential market. Anderson told CNBC it had revenues of more than $3 billion in 2021.
Anderson was impressed by the fact that the solar film is integrated into the window frame.
While there are competing solar window technologies under development, most have tradeoffs in transparency, color, viewing area obstruction, haze, or energy efficiency, making it challenging for consumers to accept them as alternatives to standard windows.
Stone knows how important transparency is to success.
Stone said that they would not see mass deployment if they looked indistinguishable from traditional windows. Our guiding light is aesthetic.
The company is getting ready to manufacture after more than a decade of work, and the $30 million raise is a bridge to get there. Scientists and engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State University created the technology that was used to create ubquitous.
More investors and consumers think that addressing climate change is an urgent priority. The solar-electricity window panels are projected to be 30% more expensive than regular glass that goes into windows once production gets to scale, but the investors are relying on this sense of urgency to spur demand for its product.
The solar glass is less efficient than traditional solar panels, which operate at a maximum of 22% efficiency, a measurement of the amount of sunlight that falls on the surface of a solar panel and is converted into electricity.
The theoretical maximum efficiency of regular solar panels is two-thirds of the potential efficiency of the research and development program.
The reason for the lower efficiency is that windows are vertical and solar panels are horizontal.
Stone said that they enable a surface that wasn't generating power already to generate electricity. The glass has always been passive.
The Boulder Commons in Colorado has windows.
One billion square feet of window glass is expected to be installed by the year 2050.
Stone is clear-eyed about the challenges ahead, and that is an ambitious goal.
The things that keep me up at night are things like, can we meet our production timelines? Will we find a manufacturing location that will allow us to break ground on our project when we want to? Will the ramp to production go smoothly?
Stone is focused on executing architectural glass right now, but that is only the first step in a long-term vision.
Stone said that there are amazing applications in all kinds of industries. We are not stopping at windows.
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