Sunspeker, an Italian business, has created a customisable, 100 percent recyclable label for solar panels.
Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), an Italian state-owned investment bank, has provided the firm with €115,000 ($120,950) to bring its revolutionary technology to market.
“Our new device is designed to provide a photovoltaic-powered, all-in-one digital display,” CEO Fabrizio Chiara told pv magazine. “Every solar panel is a possible advertising spot if Sunspeker’s sticker is applied,”
According to the business, the stickers can recreate high-definition pictures while staying light-permeable. This supposedly guarantees that the efficiency of the modules remains between 80% and 90%.
“Advertising efforts can compensate for the decline in power yield,” Chiara said. Given the durability of billboards, advertisements of this nature may also be sold at a premium.
According to reports, photographs processed utilising Sunspeker’s unique method preserve a high degree of transparency.
“However, as a matter of aesthetics, in certain instances the energy efficiency is decreased to 80 percent so that the solar panel may be better incorporated into the landscape,” Chiara said. “We are currently striving to establish standard criteria that will allow us to scale with a variety of aesthetic solutions to address the bulk of scenarios.”
The adhesive sheet for the aesthetic coverings is an outdoor-purpose thermoplastic. The corporation stated that it prioritized sustainability in its R&D efforts. It sought a totally recyclable solution in accordance with circular economic concepts.
The solar screen technology is currently being developed and has a “technical readiness level of level six” (TRL 6). The TRL is a scale from one to nine that gauges the maturity of technological components inside a system, with nine being the most developed technologies for full commercial implementation.
Canavese, located near Turin in northern Italy, is where the final product was created, and it is now available for sale. It intends to raise an additional €450,000 through further investment rounds. It was said that the organisation is actively conducting the initial pilot initiatives.
“At the end of November, we built the first residential pilot project of the solar rooftop with a ’tile’ texture in the Veneto area in collaboration with Energy Saving, a Treviso-based energy firm that believed in the Sunspeker mission and technology,” stated Chiara.