Detroit-based Power Panel, Inc., has developed solar panels that create both electricity and thermal energy. During a recent Greening of the Great Lakes interview, Adam Stratton, Power Panel’s vice president of Business Development, explained that the panels maximize the sun’s energy by capturing 80 percent rather than the typical 5-18 percent captured by a traditional photovoltaic (PV) panel.
This is important because, according to Stratton, a typical home uses roughly 70 percent thermal energy and around 30 percent electricity. By maximizing the capture of the sun’s energy, the panels create much greater efficiency.
“Our technology is based on the theory that buildings themselves have specific energy needs,” he said. “Therefore the inherent design of the panel is to produce an electrical output and a thermal output that are equivalent to those buildings’ needs.”
Combining the two energies not only maximizes the amount captured from the sun, but it also reduces the costs of electric bills. On a cost per watt basis, the efficiency created through a Power Panel can reduce costs by as much as 75 percent.
Stratton said the company took advantage of the economic downturn during its 2008 start-up by hiring many laid off, highly skilled engineers from the automotive industry. Those workers’ knowledge of materials used for making cars improved the initial design of the product. Using an extended polypropylene (EPP) and a thermal polyolefin (PPO) plastic, Power Panel can last several years more than typical solar panels.
“The panel is going to be out in the sun for probably 25-35 years; so all of those parts and all that engineering went into making those plastics for the automotive industry became directly in alignment with what we needed to employ them in our panel,” Stratton said.
But providing thermal and electrical energy through cost-saving solar panels isn’t enough. Power Panel is also committed to using recycled plastic in its manufacturing processes.
“We’re looking to increase that recycled content hopefully to 70 or 80 percent in the next year or two and, further down the road, we’re looking to actually create the entire enclosure out of bio-plastic,” Stratton said of the plastic portion of the panels, which are currently made of 30 percent recycled materials.
Stratton said Michigan has been very friendly for the solar panel industry when it comes to manufacturing, but the state has a ways to go when it comes to actually using solar for energy production.
“The state itself hasn’t really pushed to the level we would expect. You’ve got to encourage both production and consumption if you’re trying to get manufacturing going in the renewable energy industry,” Stratton said.
“[Michigan’s] not specifically as aggressive as some of the other western states or northeastern states. However, I think it’s going in the right direction,” he said.
Source: mlive.com