Thursday 4 October 2012

Solar glass that traps sunlight and boosts solar power

www.glassonweb.com
27 Sep 2012

An Australian startup lines up $5.2 million in venture capital to push its inaugural product: a coating that reduces reflection so that more sunlight can stay inside solar cells to generate electricity. Researchers have long been hard at work figuring out ways that solar panels can convert more sunlight into electricity.

A startup hailing from Australia, Brisbane Materials, now says it's figured out how to do this effectively using an anti-reflective coating, and on Monday it plans to announce an AUD $5 million ($5.2 million) Series A investment to help it ship its technology to its first customers.

Brisbane Materials' anti-reflective coating helps solar panels trap more light and the tech can boost the power output of solar panels by 3%, says its CEO Gary Wiseman. That means, for example, a solar panel that could produce 100 watts of energy without the coating will be able to yield 103 watts with Brisbane's technology. Competing coating products can deliver 2% or less, says Wiseman.

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