Ubiquitous demonstrates large-area transparent solar glass coating

Ubiquitous Energy, a Silicon Valley-based developer of transparent solar technology for architectural glass, on Wednesday said it has demonstrated 1.5-metre (4.9 ft)-wide glass coated uniformly with its transparent solar organic semiconductor materials, called UE Power.

Demonstrating the ability to scale UE Power to large sizes uniformly paves the way for the company’s high-volume manufacturing line for the production of floor-to-ceiling solar windows, it added.

Ubiquitous Energy expects its first high-volume US manufacturing line to be up and running in 2024. Each UE Power glass sized 1.5 m to 3 m could generate up to 1 kWh of electricity per day, it says.

The transparent solar glass coating technology has the advantage of being manufactured using vacuum physical vapor deposition (PVD), with the equipment currently used for coating nearly all architectural glass.

“Architectural glass isn’t actually flat; it’s slightly wavy. For this reason, achieving highly uniform, defect-free thin film electronics like transparent solar over large glass sheets has historically been difficult by other methods like solution printing,” commented Ubiquitous Energy co-founder and chief technology officer Miles Barr.

Ubiquitous Energy in January closed a USD-30-million (EUR 27.7m) Series B funding round led by window and door products maker Andersen Corp.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.924)

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