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 (Source). Today, the installed cost of clean energy is still too expensive for most consumers in the US and around the world.  The available places for installation are limited with current market PV technologies, and their overall installed-cost is too high. Global energy markets are dominated by consumption from advanced and wealthy nations, though 80% of the less affluent global population is expected to drive energy and emissions growth. The global energy markets would be transformed with low- cost renewable energy, that can be easily installed on most surfaces. 

(Source)

Solar energy is by far the most abundant source of potential clean, though solar PV currently provides less than 1% of the world’s consumed energy. Traditional PV modules are heavy, rigid, suffer high installation costs, and can only be installed on a few surfaces (e.g., a fraction of some residential roofs, weight-bearing commercial roofs, and remote 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 solution it must be practically available to be installed on far more surfaces and at a much lower cost.  

We believe PI Energy’s solar module design is different than any solar panel in the market, the key differences are the combination of properties: 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.

We believe the unique combination of properties of PI Energy’s technology meet all the necessary characteristic required to PV that can be globally scaled, to become a significantly larger portion of the global energy market. 

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 (having grown by 18% in 2018). We believe our estimated serviceable obtainable market is about 25% of the current photovoltaic module/panel market, or about $12 billion. What is unique is the growing untapped electric vehicle market.

In 2018, there were 5,000,000 electric cars worldwide with a growth of 67% over the previous year. The same year there were 460,000 electric buses, with a 25% annual growth. This represents an $8.3 billion/year untapped serviceable solar market for new vehicles. This does not include the potential of delivery vehicles fleets. In 2019, Amazon announced it will purchase 100,000 new electric delivery vehicles (Source). This is an unaddressed market, without a solar PV technology that can be practically applied to electric vehicles at a reasonable cost.  PI Energy believes that its PV material wrapped on to a delivery van could provide up to 20 miles of additional range, on a daily basis, in southern California.

*This statistic is sourced from the International Energy Agency - GW modules installed globally multiplied by the average module price figures

(Section Sources Source 1 and Source 2)

This graph's statistic is sourced from the International Energy Agency - GW modules installed globally multiplied by the average module price figures

Source 1 and Source 2

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.

The approximate breakdown of the global solar PV module sales global market:

• crystalline silicon (c-Si): $43 billion
• cadmium telluride (CdTe): $5 billion
• copper-indium-gallium-selenium-sulfur (CIGS): $5 billion

According to MIT, for a solar PV cell technology to provide a globally-scalable market-driven solar energy solution, all the key advantages (green) are required, while avoiding disadvantages (red):

(Source)

PI Energy has raised approximately $14M, over the last 9 years of technology development, 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 market-competitive and a practical energy choice for most consumers.  We want to harness market forces to deploy sustainable energy globally.

Our team of experts is driven to meet this commercial goal.  We have built hundreds of prototypes for our nanomaterial PV technology, arriving at the current design, which we intend to commercialize.  PI Energy’s team is currently developing the most recent prototypes, and integrating various manufacturing techniques, to demonstrate a fully-integrated PV material.  Our goal is to produce the first integrated PV material of the current generation design in early 2020. A provisional patent was filed for this design in December 2019.

*This video discusses our prototype products which are currently in development and pre-production. 

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 of the multiple steps have been demonstrated and optimized. These are small prototypes, after demonstrating at the small scale prototypes that reach thin film commercial efficiencies, we will move to larger scale pilot demonstration along with pilot manufacturing.

As there are multiple applications for the technology there are multiple paths to market.  These paths to market include industrial partners for production and commercialization, as well as licensing and for some high-margin markets, where PI Energy plans to utilize its initial planned production line. PI Energy’s PV film will be delivered to installers (for commercial, industrial and residential rooftops) and OEMs (for installation on mobile devices, electric vehicles, and more). 

On a first phase of commercialization, our product will be targeted toward customers and markets where current PV providers cannot meet customer requirements, due to current traditional challenges of: panel weight, lack of flexibility and/or toxic elements used. These initial customers are a part of an untapped multibillion dollar market that could use our solar panels for non-weight bearing commercial roofs, solar PV-on fabric for personnel and temporary structures/tents, electric vehicles and mobile device segments.

We intend to expand into the market through fabrication under license and joint-ventures with large established companies, that have established broad sales channels, global distribution, and the ability to integrate PI Energy’s solar materials into other products and markets.  We also plan to build multiple sales channels into OEMs, as well as partnering with direct suppliers to solar installers.

1. The Solar PV market is dominated by products that are expensive and have a limited market where they can be practically installed. The market is dominated by crystalline silicon modules, which have good performance and durability, but are limited because they are rigid, thick and relativity heavy, restricting how and where they can be installed, even at a high price.  
   
   
2. The commercial market for traditional current PV is primarily large solar farms, which require expensive infrastructure to transport the generated electricity from remote locations to the point of electricity consumption.
   
   
3. Current market rooftop solar requires rack and mounting installation hardware, as well as a prepared weight-bearing roof, which limits where solar PV can be installed today.
   
   
4. Most commercial and industrial buildings have little potential for solar PV using the current market technologies, as these are limited to weight-bearing roofs that can support the weight of the traditional PV panels and mounting hardware. Other limitations in many jurisdictions require fire code offsets, from roof edges and objects on the roof, further limiting where traditional PV can be installed.

Most existing commercially viable thin-film solar technology on the market, which could expand the market all have issues that prevent them from scaling globally or into new markets, these limitations include:

1. They contain toxic elements, such as CdTe and CIGS modules (most contain cadmium) or Perovskites (water-soluble lead) 
2. They require scarce materials with limited availability, which inhibit their market potential
3. They have insufficient performance to justify their installation
4. They suffer from durability problems. Their performance will degrade in a short period of time in the intended market environment
5. They are too expensive to install compared to the benefit provided

PI Energy’s technology does not have the weight and flexibility issues of crystalline silicon PV nor the five issues described above of existing thin-film solar PV.  This enables PI Energy’s solar PV technology to have the ability to be wrapped on almost any solid surface, which opens up new places for solar PV to be installed including, including electric cars, buses, trucks, non-weight bearing roofs, walls, external building surfaces, fences, tents, backpacks or more generally, most surfaces.  Our materials are non-toxic and costs are projected to be significantly below that of crystalline silicon PV costs, on an installed basis. These new capabilities are a result of PI Energy’s solar cell technology, providing unique market advantages over traditional solar PV:

According to the USGS, Indium and Tellurium, used in CIGS and CdTe solar cells, are not directly mined and are byproducts of copper and zinc mining and processing.

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.

PI Energy plans to expand its solar energy product into multiple markets. We plan to have our own high-end production capability that will service the high margin markets. To expand internationally, we plan to utilize regional partners who will either provide funding for regional production and commercialization or just sales channels. Using this model, we believe revenue will be more resilient because it will be based on multiple markets, not just traditional fixed installations but also consumer products. Our target customers will be diverse and we will be building multiple sales channels into OEMs, as well as partnerships with direct suppliers to solar installers.

In addition, we have been working on complementary technology that could expand solar performance to include advanced direct thermal to electric conversion. These advancements come from work performed with university partnerships. Our long-term vision is represented in our company’s full name, Pacific Integrated Energy (abbreviated to PI Energy). We plan to provide a more integrated clean energy solution, providing clean energy 24 hours a day, day and night. Solar PV can power daytime hours and advanced solar-to-thermal materials, in development at PI Energy, can provide power night and day. In addition, we have working dialogues with leading developers and innovators of energy storage solution, and we plan to partner with them in pilot projects and further commercialization.  We intend to expand internationally, in collaboration with regional partners in different market segments, facilitating broad commercialization and diverse sales channels.

Current solar energy is highly constrained in where it can be installed.  With our plan to provide our solution to cover most solid surfaces, even complex cityscapes should be producing clean energy, making solar farms possible within cities.

PI Energy was founded by Phil Layton, a physicist and intellectual property attorney, with over 20 years of experience in nanotechnology development, aerospace and defense commercialization of those technologies. PI Energy employs scientists and engineers with expertise in a wide array of fields, including materials science, device physics, chemistry, plasmonics, nanotechnology, nano-engineering, hardware testing, and fabrication. The team has been working together for 9 years, overcoming numerous challenges and together they hold multiple PhD,s, and Masters in engineering, physics, and nano-materials development.  They are veterans in commercial development. The team is highly motivated and passionate about advancing real-world commercial solutions for a better environment.

PI Energy has developed a novel and groundbreaking solar energy technology, with the opportunity to accelerate the expansion of solar PV, by making clean energy more practical and affordable than ever before.

PI Energy’s team has formulated its proprietary materials to create a product unlike any other in the market, a solar energy module that is ultra-flexible, lightweight, non-toxic, durable, high performing and made from earth-abundant materials. With PI Energy’s technology, we believe solar energy will be far more accessible, practical and cost-effective.