PI Energy is developing thin, flexible, solar nanofilms that make it possible to install solar on almost any surface. Our novel materials are low cost and easy to install, which opens vast new untapped markets for clean energy.
Problem: In 2024, clean energy is still limited and expensive
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges faced by humans. Fossil fuels continue to dominate energy markets and are projected to remain 85% of the primary energy consumed through 2040 – assuming no fundamental change in renewable energy technologies in the market. Today, the installed cost of clean energy is still too expensive for most consumers in the US and around the world
Problem: Traditional Solar PV is not growing fast enough
Even though solar energy is by far the most abundant source of potential clean energy, solar PV currently provides less than 1% of the world’s consumed energy.
Traditional PV modules are heavy, rigid, have high installation costs, and can only be installed on a few surfaces (e.g., a fraction of some residential roofs, commercial & industrial roofs; and in solar farm projects).
To significantly mitigate the pace of climate disruption, we need a better path. For solar energy to be meaningful part of the global solution, it must be available to be installed on far more surfaces and at a much lower cost.
Graph: Global Consumed Energy 2019 (BP and Irena)
Solution: Next-generation solar technology
PI Energy’s solar module design is different than any solar module in the market: ultra-thin, flexible, non-toxic, durable, good performance, lightweight, and low-cost. These properties enable new applications which were not previously available to PV, including wrap-around PV electric vehicles (cars, buses & vans), mobile electronic devices, and most surfaces of buildings (residential, commercial & industrial structures). Many commercial and industrial roofs cannot support the weight of traditional PV, including large data centers (like those massive warehouses of servers housing Amazon Web Services and Google cloud storage), which represent a single new market segment addressable by PI Energy. Our technology moves solar energy generation closer to the location of electricity consumption, reducing overall transmission and grid infrastructure costs. Existing commercially viable thin-film solar technology all have limitations that prevent them from scaling into these new markets.
Market: A global opportunity with growing demand
PI Energy’s low-cost solar film can be installed on just about any surface, which means PI Energy has the potential to significantly expand the size of the overall electric and solar PV market. Currently, the total grid-connected energy market is about $2.5 trillion per year globally, and the serviceable available solar PV module market is about $48 billion in module sales annually. Our estimated serviceable obtainable market is about 25% of the current photovoltaic module/panel market, or about $12 billion.
In 2020, California passed a mandate that all new vehicles sold starting in 2035 must be EVs, followed by many other states and countries. Several automobile manufacturers have announced plans to go completely electric by 2030 (Volvo, and in Europe, Ford) or 2035 (General Motors). This is an unaddressed market for solar PV integration, as there is no scalable market-available solar PV technology that can be practically applied to electric vehicles safely or at a reasonable cost. PI Energy intends to provide its PV material technology for wrapping onto electric vehicles, where it would serve as a range extender, for example, providing passenger vehicles and delivery vans approximately 20 miles (32 km) of additional range on a daily basis in a region with good solar resources like Southern California.
Our traction: Significant raises and improved technology
Historically, solar cell development often takes decades to mature. PI Energy has dedicated the time and expertise to develop a fundamental innovation for clean energy. With better technology, PI Energy intends to grow the market far above current trends.
To fund technology development, PI Energy has raised over $17M from private investors, mostly family offices with direct experience in renewable energy markets. The goal of PI Energy is to substantially increase the use and adoption rate of solar energy globally, by deploying its technology to make solar a market-competitive and practical energy choice for most consumers.
Making Solar PV practical: Ultra-flexible, lightweight solar materials
PI Energy is continuing to refine and develop its unique and flexible solar panel which can be produced with a roll-to-roll manufacturing process. We expect our product will be over 40 times thinner than current market crystalline-silicon solar PV while using earth-abundant and non-toxic materials. We believe these unique advantages open up new markets and makes solar energy available for almost any solid surface.
The technology is currently still under development. We are in the process of building prototypes to demonstrate the technology and the manufacturing process. We have built multiple initial prototypes that are developing various steps of this process. The full integration of all steps comes after each sum of steps has been demonstrated and optimized. These are small area prototypes, which after demonstrating at thin-film commercial efficiencies, we will move to larger-scale pilot demonstration along with pilot manufacturing.
Commercialization: Making solar energy practical worldwide by opening up untapped markets
Unaddressed markets: In the first phase of commercialization, our product will be targeted toward customers and markets where other solar PV technology does not meet customer requirements. This untapped multi-billion-dollar market requires a solar module technology that is lightweight, non-toxic, and flexible. These initial target markets include commercial/industrial sheet metal roofs, solar PV-on fabric, and electric and hybrid vehicles. We have met and discussed with several potential initial customers in several countries to better qualify these market segments’ needs. For these and other high-margin markets, PI Energy plans to utilize its planned small-scale production line.
Partnering with manufacturers/distributors: To bypass costly manufacturing scale-up and global distribution challenges, PI Energy plans to partner with high-volume manufacturers with global distribution. Current potential partnership candidates for PI Energy are companies not engaged in fabrication of solar cell materials but would like to expand their addressable markets with PI Energy’s technology.
Licensing: Our licensing approach allows us to provide our technology to multiple markets and regions. Licensing enables seamless integration with other products, including most vehicles, external building materials, equipment, textiles, and more.
Our vision: Long-term clean energy 24/7
We envision PV on most external surfaces for residential, commercial, and industrial markets, and wrapping electric cars & buses, mobile devices, and more. Over the next decade, we intend to reshape the path of renewable energy globally to bring clean energy within the reach of almost every region and market.