Lightweight 'solar cloth' photovoltaics have flexible future

The Solar Cloth Company’s award winning flexible thin film photovoltaics (FTFP) are a few micrometres thick and can be integrated into flexible and lightweight tensile structures called building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). In doing so, they provide an alternative to traditional photovoltaic panels that are heavy and cumbersome.

The Solar Cloth Company’s Perry Carroll, CEO and founder, and Christopher Jackson, innovation director told The Engineer via email that copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) is used as a base technology because it is known for its higher light-to-electricity conversion rate and lightweight flexible properties. The technology is also 100 times thinner than conventional silicon (c-Si) glass backed solar panels.

Carroll said: ‘At the moment there is a lot of interest in carports and commercial roofing. Most steel portal commercial roofing cannot support the weight of heavy glass solar panels, but our lightweight solar cloth is ideal in these situations.

‘We estimate there is around 830 million square meters of commercial roof space and 350 million square meters of car parking space in the UK alone which, if covered with solar panels, could produce enough power to feed the UK’s national grid three times over.’