New technology paint turns skyscrapers into solar farms

Ubiquitous Energy, a materials science start-up, is raising tens of millions of dollars to turn windows into rooftops that capture solar energy.

The California startup announced on Tuesday that it had closed a $30 million funding round, including an investment from window and door giant Andersen, bringing its total funding to $70 million.

The company uses semiconductor materials to convert sunlight into electricity using window coatings. The coating is only a nanometer thick and small wires connect the solar window to electrical systems, where the energy is used.

Ubquites Energy CEO Susan Stone told CNBC that the company will use the latest funding to do manufacturing research and development.

Stone said the funding aims to speed up large-scale production so that paint will be available everywhere by early 2024.

"We will be able to make floor-to-ceiling glass ... so that we can turn skyscrapers into vertical solar farms," ​​Stone said.

The startup is also targeting the residential real estate market, which makes Andersen's investment in it particularly strategic. Andersen, a private company, told CNBC that its revenues exceeded $3 billion in 2021.

Andersen particularly liked the idea of ​​Ubiquits Energy to spread its new paint all over the place; Because solar paint is unobtrusively integrated into the window frame.

"While there are competing solar window technologies in development, most have variations in transparency, color or haze," Prabhakar Kari and Karl Halling of Andersen, who led the company's investment, wrote in response to a CNBC inquiry. or energy efficiency, making it difficult for consumers to accept them as alternatives to regular windows.

"They (the windows) have to look indistinguishable from traditional windows, otherwise we won't see widespread use," Stone said. "Beauty comes from natural light," Stone said.

The $30 million increase is a bridge to prepare the company for manufacturing after more than a decade in business.

Ubiquits Energy was founded in 2011 and its technology is derived from the work of scientists and engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Michigan State University.

Since then, more investors and consumers have come to believe that tackling climate change is an urgent priority everywhere.

Ubquites Energy investors are counting on this sense of urgency to drive demand for its product. Despite its high cost, solar PV window panels are expected to be about 30% more expensive than regular glass once production increases.

Solar glass is also less efficient than conventional solar panels, with a maximum efficiency of 22%, which is a measurement of the amount of sunlight that falls on the surface of a solar panel and is converted into electricity.

Part of this lower efficiency is because the windows are vertical, while the solar panels are positioned horizontally, allowing them to collect more direct sunlight.

"But we're enabling a surface that wasn't actually generating energy to become a source of electricity," Stone said. "The glass has always been passive, and we're here to activate it."

By 2050, Ubquites Energy hopes to install 1 billion square feet of window glass globally.