New Energy Technologies, Inc., developer of the world’s first-of-its-kind, see-through technology capable of generating electricity on glass and flexible plastics, announced on January 21st that the Company has achieved compatibility of the SolarWindow™ architecture with a variety of active layer electricity-generating coatings. In organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices, the active layer plays a critical role in determining a number of the key properties of the device, including: color, amount of visible light transmission (VLT), wavelength response, and power production.
“The compatibility of SolarWindow™ with a variety of active layer materials ensures we can give building engineers, architects, and end-users alike the flexibility to choose the color and power output that meets building power offsetting requirements,” said Mr. John Conklin, President and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc. “These choices are critical to ensuring market adoption, as every building is unique, with different aesthetic characteristics.”
New Energy has established SolarWindow™ as a versatile platform for the eventual commercialization of a range of products. With different active layer electricity-generating coatings, SolarWindow™ products may be manufactured with a variety of colors, levels of VLT, wavelength response, and power production, adapting to different building characteristics, such as color, power production, and energy offsetting requirements.
The device architecture fabrication process for SolarWindow™ coatings remains unchanged, thus allowing a single fabrication line to produce a variety of active layers and color options for applications on window, plastic and other substrate products. Combined with the low-temperature, high-throughput, solution-based fabrication techniques used in SolarWindow™, this enables the Company to remain focused on low-cost fabrication processes for a wide range of products.
The compatibility of SolarWindow™ with a variety of active layer materials provides the Company a path for future development of additional products and discoveries. “The performance of OPV devices and materials has been rapidly increasing over the last decade. By demonstrating compatibility of SolarWindow™ with a variety of active layer materials, we have the opportunity to use the electricity-generating device architecture with the new, higher performance OPV materials and new developments in the future,” said Mr. Scott Hammond, Ph.D., Principal Scientist of New Energy Technologies, Inc.
New Energy Technologies is preparing to unveil the Company’s next-generation, high performance SolarWindow™ prototypes with never-before-released photos and multi-media content within the first quarter, 2014. The Company is awaiting performance results for its latest high-performance prototypes from an accredited independent Photovoltaic Testing Lab. Upon receipt of the Lab’s Performance Test Report, the Company anticipates announcing unveiling dates and additional information regarding the technology in future announcements.