Solar panels for concrete facades

Heliatek, a maker of solar PV products, has signed a development agreement with Reckli, a manufacturer of elastic moulds for concrete building facades.

This will enable vertical concrete walls of buildings to become efficient solar energy harvesters by integrating organic solar panels directly onto concrete facade blocks.

This building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) solution will combine energy harvesting to reduce a building’s carbon footprint with an aesthetically pleasing, visual appearance.

Heliatek’s technology is suitable for this application, because it is ultralight, ultrathin and ultrapowerful, as it harvests the sun’s energy at peak efficiency across a wide range of conditions for more time than traditional solar technologies.

One problem with conventional solar panels is that their efficiency drops off with every degree in temperature gained.

The organic modules remain constant up to 80°C and that is why the panels can be integrated onto the concrete without any need for ventilation.

In conventional panels, if the light intensity decreases, the efficiency decreases. The concrete insert panels are efficient from full sun to a tenth of full sun.

Heliatek estimates that the combination of these two factors will increase the specific annual harvesting yield of its panels by 10 to 20% compared with conventional solar panels.